Top 65 Gustav Mahler Quotes
#1. It is strange how one feels drawn forward without knowing at first where one is going.
Gustav Mahler
#2. Don't bother looking at the view - I have already composed it.
Gustav Mahler
#3. Only when I experience do I compose - only when I compose do I experience.
Gustav Mahler
#4. If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.
Gustav Mahler
#5. If I weren't the way I am, I shouldn't write my symphonies.
Gustav Mahler
#6. I hope you will no longer accuse me of a lack of delicacy. as I now count on your understanding.
Gustav Mahler
#7. Tradition is tending the flame, not worshiping the ashes.
Gustav Mahler
#8. I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.
Gustav Mahler
#9. I was a crazy young man who let himself be blinded by his passions and obeyed only the impulses of the moment.
Gustav Mahler
#10. 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
#11. 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
#12. I beg of you ... never assume an inner or an outer pose, never a disguise.
Gustav Mahler
#13. All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish.
Gustav Mahler
#14. What I wanted and what I visualized while composing has not always been realized.
Gustav Mahler
#15. Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift.
Gustav Mahler
#16. I live like a Hottentot. I cannot exchange one sensible word with anyone.
Gustav Mahler
#18. It should be one's sole endeavor to see everything afresh and create it anew.
Gustav Mahler
#19. Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.
Gustav Mahler
#20. I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an intruder, never welcomed.
Gustav Mahler
#21. That which draws us by its mystical force; what every created thing, even the very stones, feels with absolute certainty as the center of its being ... is the force of love. Christians call this "eternal blessedness." It is a necessity of man for growth and joy.
Gustav Mahler
#23. A full cup of wine at the right time is worth more than all the kingdoms of this earth!
Gustav Mahler
#25. I don't let myself get carried away by my own ideas - I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.
Gustav Mahler
#26. A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.
Gustav Mahler
#27. The real art of conducting consists in transitions.
Gustav Mahler
#28. You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.
Gustav Mahler
#29. The impressions of the spriritual experiences gave my future life its form and content.
Gustav Mahler
#30. My time will come, that is: after the finish of the recurring song cycles
Gustav Mahler
#31. When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one.
Gustav Mahler
#32. If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster.
Gustav Mahler
#33. I have become a different person. I don't know whether this person is better, he certainly is not happier.
Gustav Mahler
#34. Destiny smiles upon me but without making me the least bit happier.
Gustav Mahler
#35. The spirit can assert itself only through the medium of clear form.
Gustav Mahler
#36. What is best in music is not to be found in the notes.
Gustav Mahler
#37. Both my marriages were failures! Number one departed, and number two stayed
Gustav Mahler
#38. 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
#39. 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
#40. It is easier to achieve a desired result in short pieces.
Gustav Mahler
#41. I am thrice homeless, as a bohemian, as an Austrian, and all over the world, you guessed it right I am Jewish
Gustav Mahler
#42. 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.
Gustav Mahler
#43. In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.
Gustav Mahler
#44. The further the music develops, the more complex the apparatus used by the composer to express his thoughts becomes.
Gustav Mahler
#45. To judge a composer's work, one must consider it as a whole.
Gustav Mahler
#46. To write a symphony is, for me, to construct a world.
Gustav Mahler
#47. But it's peculiar, as soon as I am in the midst of nature and by myself, everything that is base and trivial vanishes without trace. On such days nothing scares me; and this helps me again and again.
Gustav Mahler
#48. Tradition is the spreading of fire and not the veneration of ashes.
Gustav Mahler
#49. A true personality ... is like a robust organism that, with unconscious sureness, seeks out and digests the nourishment appropriate to it and vigorously rejects that which is unsuitable.
Gustav Mahler
#50. In Bach, the vital cells of music are united as the world is in God.
Gustav Mahler
#52. Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking.
Gustav Mahler
#53. Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one's way.
Gustav Mahler
#55. Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested. So let us not be idle.
Gustav Mahler
#56. In the theatrical works we love and admire the most, the ending of the drama generally takes place offstage.
Gustav Mahler
#57. Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand.
Gustav Mahler
#58. 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
#59. Spring won't let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.
Gustav Mahler
#60. Don't bother to look, I've composed all this already.
Gustav Mahler
#61. The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks.
Gustav Mahler
#63. It is always the same with me; only when I experience something do I compose, and only when composing do I experience! After all, a musician's nature can hardly be expressed in words.
Gustav Mahler
#64. It is a funny thing, but when I am making music, all the answers I seek for in life seem to be there, in the music. Or rather, I should say, when I am making music, there are no questions and no need for answers.
Gustav Mahler
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