Gustav Mahler Quotes, Sayings, Remarks, Thoughts and Speeches
Gustav Mahler Quotes and Sayings
- 1
A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 2
All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 3
An operetta is simply a small and gay opera.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 4
Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 5
Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 6
Destiny smiles upon me but without making me the least bit happier.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 7
Discipline, work. Work, discipline.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 8
Don't bother looking at the view - I have already composed it.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 9
Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 10
Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested. So let us not be idle.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 11
I also had a brother who was like me a musician and a composer. A man of great talent, far more gifted than I. He died very young... he killed himself in the prime of his life.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 12
I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 13
I beg of you... never assume an inner or an outer pose, never a disguise.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 14
I don't let myself get carried away by my own ideas - I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 15
I have become a different person. I don't know whether this person is better, he certainly is not happier.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 16
I hope you will no longer accuse me of a lack of delicacy. as I now count on your understanding.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 17
I live like a Hottentot. I cannot exchange one sensible word with anyone.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 18
I was a crazy young man who let himself be blinded by his passions and obeyed only the impulses of the moment.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 19
If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 20
If I weren't the way I am, I shouldn't write my symphonies.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 21
If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 22
In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 23
In the theatrical works we love and admire the most, the ending of the drama generally takes place offstage.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 24
It is easier to achieve a desired result in short pieces.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 25
It is strange how one feels drawn forward without knowing at first where one is going.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 26
It should be one's sole endeavor to see everything afresh and create it anew.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 27
It's not just a question of conquering a summit previously unknown, but of tracing, step by step, a new pathway to it.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 28
Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 29
Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one's way.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 30
Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 31
The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 32
The further the music develops, the more complex the apparatus used by the composer to express his thoughts becomes.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 33
The impressions of the spriritual experiences gave my future life its form and content.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 34
The longer you live and the more you learn, the more clearly you will feel the difference between the few men who are truly great and the mere virtuosi.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 35
The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 36
The real art of conducting consists in transitions.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 37
The spirit can assert itself only through the medium of clear form.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 38
There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 39
To judge a composer's work, one must consider it as a whole.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 40
What I wanted and what I visualized while composing has not always been realized.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 41
When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 42
With the coming of spring, I am calm again.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
- 43
You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.
Gustav Mahler | Refcard PDF ↑
