#mozart

For all his claims to be just a propagandist, [Bernard Shaw's] writing has an effect nearer to that of music than most of those who have claimed to be writing "dramas of feeling." His plays are a joy to watch, not because they purport to deal with social and political problems, but because they are such wonderful displays of conspicuous waste; the conversational energy displayed by his characters is so far in excess of what their situation requires that, if it were to be devoted to practical action, it would wreck the world in five minutes. The Mozart of English letters he is not – the music of the Marble Statue is beyond him – the Rossini, yes. He has all the brio, humor, cruel clarity and virtuosity of that master of opera buffa. ↗

— W.H. Auden

#music #opera #rossini #shaw #music

Le Requiem de Mozart. Un souffle de l'au-delà y plane. Comment croire, après une pareille audition, que l'univers n'ait aucun sens? Il faut qu'il en ait un. Que tant de sublime se résolve dans le néant, le coeur, aussi bien que l'entendement, refuse de l'admettre. Quelque chose doit exister quelque part, un brin de réalité doit être contenu dans ce monde. Ivresse du possible qui rachète la vie. Craignons le retombement et le retour du savoir amer... ↗

— Emil Cioran

#mozart #music #music

Strauss! Oh yes, he was so-so. He wrote pretty music- The Blue Danube and Tales from the Vienna Woods. But what is that compared to Mozart?' Suddenly, Bess and George spotted Nancy coming towards them. 'Nancy!' the cousins chimed simultaneously and raced toward her. 'I see our bus driver is still at it.' Nancy grinned. 'All the way from Salzburg." George groaned. 'Did he run off the road again?' 'Not once but many times,' Bess said. 'It was awful. Once he got so angry because someone compared Beethoven to Mozart that he actually stopped the bus, ran outside, and shouted into the valley, Beethoven is a bore. Mozart is sublime. Over and over. The professor had to go out and drag him back to the bus. ↗

— Carolyn Keene

#humor #mozart #nancy-drew #music

Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history. ↗

— Susan Sontag

#jewish #mozart #race #racism #shakespeare

Mozart often wrote to his family that certain variations or sections of pieces were so successful that they had to be encored immediately, even without waiting for the entire piece to end. ↗

— Emanuel Ax

#end #entire #even #family #had

The man on the street, he knows who Beethoven is, he knows who Mozart is. ↗

— Joshua Bell

#knows #man #mozart #street #who

If Beethoven and Bach hooked up with Mozart and made a band, they could be a distant runner up to The D. ↗

— Jack Black

#band #beethoven #could #distant #hooked

If Antarctica were music it would be Mozart. Art, and it would be Michelangelo. Literature, and it would be Shakespeare. And yet it is something even greater; the only place on earth that is still as it should be. May we never tame it. ↗

— Andrew Denton

#art #earth #even #greater #literature

When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music. ↗

— Dave Brubeck

#beethoven #great #hear #i #i can

I'm writing a movie about Mozart going to New York in the '60s. I've been reading so many novels. ↗

— John Cale

#been #going #i #many #movie