Richard Strauss Quotes

• The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but the most difficult to play.

  Richard Strauss

  Beautiful, Play, Voice

  42 Copy quote

• I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.

  Richard Strauss

  Inspiring, Music, Second Chance

  57 Copy quote

• Ideas, like young wine, should be put in storage and taken up again only after they have been allowed to ferment and to ripen.

  Richard Strauss

  Taken, Wine, Ideas

  24 Copy quote

• I want to be able to depict in music a glass of beer so accurately that every listener can tell whether it is a Pilsner or a Kulmbacher.

  Richard Strauss

  Beer, Glasses, Want

  29 Copy quote

• Never look at the trombones, you'll just encourage them.

  Richard Strauss

  Looks, Performing, Trombone

  16 Copy quote

• I shall never be converted, and I shall remain true to my old religion of the classics until my life's end.

  Richard Strauss

  Ends

  26 Copy quote

• The most perfect melodic shapes are found in Mozart; he has the lightness of touch which is the true objective ... Listen to the remarkable expansion of a Mozart melody, to Cherubino's 'Voi che sapete', for instance. You think it is coming to an end, but it goes farther, even farther.

  Richard Strauss

  Thinking, Perfect, Shapes

  12 Copy quote

• Its a funny thing Alice, dying is just the way I composed it in Tod und Verklärung.

  Richard Strauss

  Funny Things, Dying, Way

  21 Copy quote

• The aria, after all, is the soul of opera.

  Richard Strauss

  Soul, Opera, Aria

  8 Copy quote

• On conducting: If you can just barely hear the French horns on stage, the balance is perfect.

  Richard Strauss

  Perfect, Balance, Conducting

  21 Copy quote

• Must one become seventy years old to recognize that one's greatest strength lies in creating musical kitsch?

  Richard Strauss

  Lying, Years, Creating

  Richard Strauss, Stefan Zweig (1977). “A Confidential Matter: The Letters of Richard Strauss and Stefan Zweig, 1931-1935”, p.39, Univ of California Press

  11 Copy quote

• don't perspire while conducting - only the audience should get warm.

  Richard Strauss

  Conducting, Should, Audience

  10 Copy quote

• If you think that the brass is not blowing loud enough, mute it by a couple of degrees.

  Richard Strauss

  Couple, Thinking, Degrees

  17 Copy quote

• Never look at the brass - it only encourages them.

  Richard Strauss

  Music, Looks, Brass

  13 Copy quote

• He'd be better off shoveling snow.

  Richard Strauss

  Snow, Musical, Better Off

  11 Copy quote

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