Brahms quotes:

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The Detroit String Quartet played Brahms last night. Brahms lost. -- Bennett Cerf
The real Brahms is nothing more than a sentimental voluptuary -- George Bernard Shaw
Brahms' Variations are better than mine, but mine were written before his. -- Franz Liszt
When Brahms is in extra good spirits, he sings, "The grave is my joy". -- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
The three greatest composers are Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. All the others are cretins. -- Hans von Bulow
There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem. -- George Bernard Shaw
A landscape, torn by mists and clouds, in which I can see ruins of old churches, as well as of Greek temples - that is Brahms. -- Edvard Grieg
The real Brahms is nothing more than a sentimental voluptuary. rather tiresomely addicted to dressing himself up as Handel or Beethoven and making a prolonged and intolerable noise. -- George Bernard Shaw
Every orchestra is different. Sometimes, you're blown away by a particular musician. If I'm playing the Brahms concerto, it's crucial to have a great oboe player, because we work in tandem. -- Joshua Bell
I saw Brahms's Hungarian Rhapsody on television when I was two. Tom and Jerry were playing it together. I thought, 'Hey, if a cat can play like that, why can't I?' -- Lang Lang
I don't believe that a lot of the things I hear on the air today are going to be played for as long a time as Coleman Hawkins records or Brahms concertos. -- Oscar Peterson
If you think of the history, in the days of Brahms and Beethoven and all these guys, almost every concert was a new music concert. To play something old was really an exception. -- Esa-Pekka Salonen
Listening to my regular favourites - Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and so on - I always feel, quite misguidedly, that nothing can be too bad if such beauty and brilliance exists in the world. -- Jane Asher
Brahms stayed an extra day to hear my [Fifth] Symphony and was very kind ... I like his honesty and open-mindedness. Neither he nor the players liked the finale, which I also think rather horrible. -- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
I once sent him a song and asked him to mark a cross wherever he thought it was faulty. Brahms returned it untouched, saying 'I don't want to make a cemetery of your compositions.' -- Hugo Wolf
I can't stand being in Chicago anymore and hearing the Brahms Violin Concerto in the elevator. Because that shows me that when they come to the concert hall they listen to it in the same way. -- Daniel Barenboim
I'm too busy playing. When I'm playing I don't pay attention to who's listening. When I was listening I listened to symphony orchestras, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Stravinsky. You don't listen to one instrument; you listen to music. -- Charles Mingus
The only work that can be compared to Chopin's Etudes, innovatively, where every note is essential and one becomes completely exposed, is the Brahms-Paganini variations. These are etudes - not as interesting musically as, say, the Brahms-Handel - but they are incredible. -- Carlo Grante
That was one of the big problems when I was at Harvard studying music. We had to write choral pieces in the style of Brahms or Mendelssohn, which was distressing because in the end you realized how good Brahms is, and how bad you are. -- Elliott Carter
I think Bach is equally a romantic composer because he laid the seeds harmonically for people like Chopin and the great Romantics, Brahms, so its difficult to you know all this like labelling and putting - I think Bach is attractive to musicians because he supersedes the labels. -- Nigel Kennedy
Brahms believed that there was no need to publish absolutely everything that Schubert ever wrote. -- Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Even if you're playing Brahms or a Beethoven concerto, you've got to have a different vantage point, slightly, each time. -- Nigel Kennedy
Fortunately, I started very young, so I read music very well. And my favorite composers to play are Brahms and Mozart. -- Condoleezza Rice
In truth, I became a conductor because deep down I wanted to conduct Brahms's four symphonies and Richard Strauss's tone poems. -- Zubin Mehta
Classical pianist Awadagin Pratt. I first heard this eccentric and introverted performer when I was living in the Midwest. He was playing Brahms ballades - haunting. -- Daniel Breaker
Nothing is so lovely as a quietly snoring dog and some evening Brahms, as you sit in a comfortably overstuffed chair with your feet on the footstool. -- Ann Beattie
To my mind and ear, there is simply nothing that compares to the musical sophistication of a late Beethoven, Bartok, Schubert or Brahms work for minimal forces. -- Leonard Slatkin
I play a lot chamber music.As for something that's hard for me to play, before I leave this Earth I'm hoping to play Brahms' Second Piano Concerto. -- Condoleezza Rice
I stick to playing Brahms, but I love listening to Led Zeppelin, and I've also been a big fan of Earth Wind and Fire since the Seventies and of The Gap Band since the Eighties. -- Condoleezza Rice
If you go to Japan for instance, you should know that they have a different way of playing Beethoven or Brahms. But if you play with them Mozart, Debussy, Mendelssohn, they have a wonderful light feeling for that. -- Kurt Masur
If you go to Japan for instance, you should know that they have a different way of playing Beethoven or Brahms. But if you play with them Mozart, Debussy, Mendelssohn, they have a wonderful light feeling for that." -- Kurt Masur
The Germans have four violin concertos. The greatest, most uncompromising is Beethoven's. The one by Brahms vies with it in seriousness. The richest, the most seductive, was written by Max Bruch. But the most inward, the heart's jewel, is Mendelssohn's. -- Joseph Joachim
I think Bach is equally a romantic composer because he laid the seeds harmonically for people like Chopin and the great Romantics, Brahms, so it's difficult to you know all this like labelling and putting - I think Bach is attractive to musicians because he supersedes the labels. -- Nigel Kennedy
I listen to music when I write. I need the musical background. Classical music. I'm behind the times. I'm still with Baroque music, Gregorian chant, the requiems, and with the quartets of Beethoven and Brahms. That is what I need for the climate, for the surroundings, for the landscape: the music. -- Elie Wiesel
Brahms once remarked that the mark of an artist is how much he throws away. Nature, the great creator, is always throwing things away. A frog lays several million eggs at a sitting. Only a few dozen of these become tadpoles, and only a few of those become frogs. We can let imagination and practice be as profligate as nature. -- Stephen Nachmanovitch
Reviewer: 'One of your themes was very similar to one of Beethoven's!' Brahms replied, 'Of course it is. Everyone steals - the important thing is to do it brilliantly. -- Johannes Brahms

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