Quote

Think it a vile habit to alter works of good composers, to omit parts of them, or to insert new-fashioned ornaments. This is the greatest insult you can offer to Art.

Robert Schumann

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Robert Schumann
Age: 46 †
Born: 1810
Born: June 8
Died: 1856
Died: July 29
Composer
Conductor
Music Critic
Music Pedagogue
Musician
Musicologist
Pianist
Robert Alexander Schumann
Greatest
Fashioned
Art
Composer
Good
Insult
Omit
Think
Offer
Insert
Thinking
Parts
Composers
Offers
Vile
Habit
Ornaments
Works
Alter

More quotes by Robert Schumann

Image
Can that which has cost the artist days, weeks, months and even years of reflection be understood in a flash by a dilettante?
Robert Schumann
Image
Music induces nightingales to sing, pug dogs to yelp.
Robert Schumann
Image
Talent works, genius creates.
Robert Schumann
Image
Mendelssohn I consider the first musician of the day I doff my hat to him as my superior. He plays with everything, especially with the grouping of the instruments in the orchestra, but with such ease, delicacy and art, with such mastery throughout.
Robert Schumann
Image
It was an unforgettable picture to see Chopin sitting at the piano like a clairvoyant, lost in his dreams to see how his vision communicated itself through his playing, and how, at the end of each piece, he had the sad habit of running one finger over the length of the plaintive keyboard, as though to tear himself forcibly away from his dream.
Robert Schumann
Image
The poet sees better than other mortals. I do not see things as they are, but according to my own subjective impression, and this makes life easier and simpler.
Robert Schumann
Image
Only when the form grows clear to you, will the spirit become so too.
Robert Schumann
Image
From a pound of iron, that costs little, a thousand watch-springs can be made, whose value becomes prodigious. The pound you have received from the Lord,--use it faithfully.
Robert Schumann
Image
When you play, do not trouble yourself as to who is listening. Yet always play as though a master listened to you.
Robert Schumann
Image
Nature best teaches how to pray, and how to reverence all the gifts the Almighty has given us. She is like a vast outspread handkerchief, embroidered with God's eternal name, on which we may dry alike our tears of sorrow and of joy she turns weeping into ecstasy, and fills our hearts with speechless, quiet reverence and resignation.
Robert Schumann
Image
For me Wagner is impossible... he talks without ever stopping. One can't just talk all the time.
Robert Schumann
Image
Confidence and courage are special skills to the art ... Within the four walls of his study, the artist should be modest, work diligently and conscientiously. While for the public, he'll show himself audacious, yes even into cheerful boldness. And so a new public's darling has arisen.
Robert Schumann
Image
My indifference to money and my spendthrift ways are disgraceful. You have no idea how reckless I am how often I practically throw money out of the window. I am always making good resolutions, but the next minute I forget and give the waiter eightpence.
Robert Schumann
Image
My symphonies would have reached Opus 100 if I had but written them down... Sometimes I am so full of music, and so overflowing with melody, that I find it simply impossible to write down anything.
Robert Schumann
Image
If we were all determined to play the first violin we should never have an ensemble. therefore, respect every musician in his proper place.
Robert Schumann
Image
I was a God-fearing child, innocent and physically attractive.
Robert Schumann
Image
I feel so entirely in my element with a full orchestra even if my mortal enemies were marshalled before me, I could lead them, master them, surround them, or repulse them.
Robert Schumann
Image
When young, one learns his craftsmanship, may become a young master, and it is youth that is most auspicious for developing certain skills.
Robert Schumann
Image
It is the curse of talent that, although it labors with greater steadiness and perseverance than genius, it does not reach its goal, while genius already on the summit of the ideal, gazes laughingly about.
Robert Schumann
Image
Does it not seem as if Mozart's works become fresher and fresher the oftener we hear them?
Robert Schumann