Robert Schumann Quotes

Let me give you one piece of advice: don’t improvise too much. It is such a waste of precious material. Make a point of writing everything down; you will thus collect and concentrate your ideas. You are denied the tranquillity and security from interruption which are the essential conditions for finishing a composition perfectly.

I should like to call you by all the endearing epithets, and yet I can find no lovelier word than the simple word “dear,” but there is a particular way of saying it. My dear one, then, I have wept for joy to think that you are mine, and often wonder if 1 deserve you.

To compose music, all you have to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of.

Our music is like cannons hidden in roses.

In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of.

For me, music is always the language which permits one to converse with the Beyond.

The study of the history of music and the hearing of masterworks of different epochs will quickly cure you of vanity and self-adoration.

It is music’s lofty mission to shed light on the depths of the human heart.

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 […]

Music owes as much to Bach as a religion to its founder.