"Concerts are never real music, you have to give up the idea of hearing in them all the most beautiful things of art."
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Quote collection
Frederic Chopin quotes (page 3 of 4)
66 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"England is so surrounded by the boredom of conventionalities, that it is all one to them whether music is good or bad, since they have to hear it from morning till night. For here they have flower-shows with music, dinners with music, sales with music."
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"My piano has not yet arrived. How did you send it? By Marseilles or by Perpignan? I dream music but I cannot make any because here there are not any pianos . . . in this respect this is a savage country."
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"Mozart encompasses the entire domain of musical creation, but I've got only the keyboard in my poor head."
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"Having nothing to do, I am correcting the Paris edition of Bach; not only the engraver's mistakes, but also the mistakes hallowed by those who are supposed to understand Bach (I have no pretensions to understand better, but I do think that sometimes I can guess)."
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"If the newspapers cut me up so much that I shall not venture before the world again, I have resolved to become a house painter; that would be as easy as anything else, and I should, at any rate, still be an artist!"
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"They want me to give another concert but I have no desire to do so. You cannot imagine what a torture the three days before a public appearance are to me."
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"I haven't heard anything so great for a long time; Beethoven snaps his fingers at the whole world."
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"The three most celebrated doctors on the island have been to see me. One sniffed at what I spat, the second tapped where I spat from, and the third sounded me and listened as I spat. The first said I was dead, the second that I was dying and the third that I'm going to die."
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"My manuscripts sleep, while I cannot, for I am covered with poultices."
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"As long as I have health and strength, I will gladly work all my days."
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"A strange adventure befell me while I was playing my Sonata in B flat minor before some English friends. I had played the Allegro and the Scherzo more or less correctly. I was about to attack the March when suddenly I saw arising from the body of my piano those cursed creatures which had appeared to me one lugubrious night at the Chartreuse. I had to leave for one instant to pull myself together after which I continued without saying anything."
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"Yesterday's concert was a success. I hasten to let you know. I inform your Lordship that I was not a bit nervous and played as I play when I am alone. It went well... and I had to come back and bow four times."
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"You already know when I'm writing, so don't be surprised if it's short and dry, because I'm too hungry to write anything fat"
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"Bach is like an astronomer who, with the help of ciphers, finds the most wonderful stars."
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"Hats off, gentlemen - a genius! If the mighty autocrat of the north knew what a dangerous enemy threatened him in Chopin's works in the simple tunes of his mazurkas, he would forbid this music. Chopin's works are canons buried in flowers."
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"All the same it is being said everywhere that I played too softly, or rather, too delicately for people used to the piano-pounding of the artists here."
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"Chopin was the first piano composer who knew exactly how to make piano sound reach fullness, radiance and grandness. What to regard and what, by all means, to avoid. Chopin was keenly aware of the overtones and he did take care of them so artfully."
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"Oh, how hard it must be to die anywhere but in ones birthplace."
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"Here, whatever is not boring is not English."
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