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Only when I experience do I compose - only when I compose do I experience.

Gustav Mahler

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Gustav Mahler
Age: 50 †
Born: 1860
Born: July 7
Died: 1911
Died: May 18
Classical Composer
Composer
Conductor
Musician
Mahler
Compose
Experience

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Both my marriages were failures! Number one departed, and number two stayed
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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.
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To write a symphony is, for me, to construct a world.
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Don't bother looking at the view - I have already composed it.
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A full cup of wine at the right time is worth more than all the kingdoms of this earth!
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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.
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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.
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Tradition is laziness.
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In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.
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I beg of you... never assume an inner or an outer pose, never a disguise.
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When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one.
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In the theatrical works we love and admire the most, the ending of the drama generally takes place offstage.
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Even if people censure me, they should do so hat in hand.
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What is best in music is not to be found in the notes.
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Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking.
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Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift.
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It's not just a question of conquering a summit previously unknown, but of tracing, step by step, a new pathway to it.
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I don't let myself get carried away by my own ideas I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.
Gustav Mahler
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The further the music develops, the more complex the apparatus used by the composer to express his thoughts becomes.
Gustav Mahler
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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