#beethoven

I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing. ↗

— John Berryman

#artists #beethoven #goya #literature #luck

I'd love to have William Faulkner, Beethoven and Bach over. I want to find out what makes those guys tick! ↗

— Candy Crowley

#beethoven #faulkner #find #guys #i

With copious evidence ranging from Plato's haughtiness to Beethoven's tirades, we may conclude that the most brilliant people of history tend to be a prickly lot. ↗

— Stephen Jay Gould

#brilliant #conclude #evidence #history #lot

Imagine if Beethoven had a tape recorder. Then you'd know exactly what he meant. Maybe he meant 'Da da da da' instead of 'Boom boom boom boom!' Who knows? ↗

— Eddie Van Halen

#boom #exactly #had #imagine #instead

Yesterday I was playing Beethoven's fifth, because I love that. ↗

— Joan Armatrading

#beethoven #fifth #i #i love #love

If a professional musician in a symphony orchestra is playing Beethoven. But this particular orchestra have played this particular chestnut so many times, they can play it in their sleep. Does the genius remain present in the music or not? ↗

— Robert Fripp

#does #genius #many #music #musician

I was a strange, loud little kid who could sit at the piano and kill a Beethoven piece. ↗

— Lady Gaga

#could #i #kid #kill #little

I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill. ↗

— Franz Liszt

#conductor #find #functions #i #led

That Beethoven was capable of producing the ultimate musical definition of heroism in this context is itself extraordinary, for he was able to evoke a dream of heroism that neither he nor his native Germany nor his adopted Vienna could express in reality. Perhaps we can only measure the heroism of the Eroica by the depth of fear and uncertainty from with it emerged. ↗

— Maynard Solomon

#dreams

For me to rehearse with a children's orchestra a Mahler symphony was to really work. We had three or four weeks of rehearsal with the orchestra, every day eight or nine hours, putting the First together. I had been conducting Tchaikovsky a lot and Beethoven, but Mahler was different. ↗

— Gustavo Dudamel

#beethoven #children #conducting #day #different