Gustav Mahler

Sourced

• Ich weiß für mich, dass ich, solang ich mein Erlebnis in Worten zusammenfassen kann, gewiss keine Musik hierüber machen wuerde.
  • If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.
  • Variant: For myself I know that, as long as I can summarize my experience in words, I would certainly not make any music about it.
    • Letter to Max Marschall (1896-03-26)

Unsourced

• 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.

• A symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.

• 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.

• Don't bother looking at the view — I have already composed it.

• If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster.

• The important thing is never to let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries; to continue steadfastly on one's way without letting oneself be either defeated by failure or diverted by applause.

• What's best in music is not to be found in the notes.

• Was ihr Theaterleute euere Tradition nennt, das ist nichts anderes als eure Bequemlichkeit und Schlamperei.
  • What the theater folks call tradition is nothing more than their laziness and sloppiness.

• You couldn't imagine how this will sound!
  • To Natalie Bauer-Lechner of his third symphony

• Try to imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound.
  • On the finale of his eighth symphony "Res Severa Verum Gaudia" (To Be Serious is the Greatest Joy)