Quotes & Sayings About Schumann

I should also mention that the Neue Galerie is piping music into the galleries where "Klee and America" is hanging, a practice for which vulgar is not even close to the word. Yes, I like Schumann's Carnaval, but I'm damned if I know why anybody thinks the paintings of Paul Klee profit from being viewed with Carnaval playing in the background. — Terry Teachout

Art was not created as a way to riches. Strive to become a true artist; all else will take care of itself. — Robert Schumann

Just as surely as every new language mastered opens up a new world, so knowledge of a Beethoven, a Chopin, or a Schumann opens up a new world in spiritual beauty and thought. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

I am so fresh in soul and spirit that life gushes and bubbles around me in a thousand springs. — Robert Schumann

Every man has his faults; I have and so have you - you will allow me to say so! — Clara Schumann

One encounters very capable fathers abashed by their piano-playing daughters. Three measures of Schumann make them red with embarrassment. — Alfred Doblin

You should neither play bad compositions, nor, unless compelled, listen to them. — Robert Schumann

It's rather splendid to think of all those great men and women who appear to have presented symptoms that allow us to describe them as bipolar. Whether it's Hemingway, Van Gogh ... Robert Schumann has been mentioned ... Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath ... some of them with rather grim ends. — Stephen Fry

You appear in the Novelletten in every possible circumstance, in every irresistible form ... They could only be written by one who knows such eyes as yours and has touched such lips as yours. — Clara Schumann

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

My heart pounds sickeningly and I turn pale ... I often feel as if I were dead ... I seem to be losing my mind. — Robert Schumann

I cannot be so bad when everybody is so fond of me. — Clara Schumann

Nothing right can be accomplished in art without enthusiasm. — Robert Schumann

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

Music - so different from painting - is the art which we enjoy most in company with others. A symphony, presented in a room with one other listener, would please him but little. — Robert Schumann

People compose for many reasons, to become immortal; because the piano happens to be open; because they want to become a millionaire; because of the praise of friends; because they have looked into a pair of beautiful eyes; or for no reason whatsoever. — Robert Schumann

Remember, there are more people in the world than yourself. Be modest! You have not yet invented nor thought anything which others have not thought or invented before. And should you really have done so, consider it a gift of heaven which you are to share with others. — Robert Schumann

Perhaps only a Genius can truly understand Genius. — Robert Schumann

I've got great joy from rediscovering Western music. I love Schumann and Chopin, and those amazing symphonies of Bruckner. — John Tavener

You said how Michelangelo was a manic-depressive who portrayed himself as a flayed martyr in his painting. Henri Matisse gave up being a lawyer because of appendicitis. Robert Schumann only began composing after his right hand became paralyzed and ended his career as a concert pianist. (...) You talked about Nietzsche and his tertiary syphilis. Mozart and his uremia. Paul Klee and the scleroderma that shrank his joints and muscles to death. Frida Kahlo and the spina bifida that covered her legs with bleeding sores. Lord Byron and his clubfoot. The Bronte sisters and their tuberculosis. Mark Rothko and his suicide. Flannery O'Connor and her lupus. Inspiration needs disease, injury, madness.

"According to Thomas Mann," Peter said, "'Great artists are great invalids. — Chuck Palahniuk

Thus it is ever in life. The aims we once pursued no longer satisfy us; we aim, we strive, we aspire, until sight fails, and mind and body find rest in the grave. — Robert Schumann

Why hurry over beautiful things? Why not linger and enjoy them? — Clara Schumann

We may be sure that a genius like Mozart, were he born today, would write concertos like Chopin and not like Mozart. — Robert Schumann

Beethoven introduced us to anger. Haydn taught us capriciousness, Rachmaninoff melancholy. Wagner was demonic. Bach was pious. Schumann was mad, and because his genius was able to record his fight for sanity, we heard what isolation and the edge of lunacy sounded like. Liszt was lusty and vigorous and insisted that we confront his overwhelming sexuality as well as our own. Chopin was a poet, and without him we never would have understood what night was, what perfume was, what romance was. — Doris Mortman

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

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

The only way to heal yourself was to understand. Understand the love or the hate or the cowardice, or the impulsiveness, the lack of will of the one who hurt you
the circumstances that twisted them, the influences that warped them. And when you forgot yourself and saw the others with pitying comprehension, saw their tortured motives, a white, healing peace descended upon you. Your betrayal became an impersonal one, like a bridge giving way when you crossed it, lightning, a motor collision
you were in the way and you were damaged
that was all. It wasn't meant for you. When you understood, you were released into a new freedom and wisdom. — Mary Schumann

An evil fate has deprived me of the full use of my right hand, so that I am not able to play my compositions as I feel them. The trouble with my hand is that certain fingers have become so weak, probably through writing and playing too much at one time, that I can hardly use them. — Robert Schumann

God answers every prayer, Rabbi Schumann once told him, years ago. Mostly His answer is 'no'. — Paul Russell

When you play, do not trouble yourself as to who is listening. Yet always play as though a master listened to you. — Robert Schumann

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

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

For me Wagner is impossible ... he talks without ever stopping. One can't just talk all the time. — Robert Schumann

Once, somebody asked Robert Schumann to explain the meaning of a certain piece of music he had just played on the piano.
What Robert Schumann did was sit back down at the piano and play the piece of music again. — David Markson

That first concept is alway the most naturally and best. The mind errs, the emotion never. — Robert Schumann

My health may be better preserved if I exert myself less, but in the end doesn't each person give his life for his calling? — Clara Schumann

I will yield to popular demands only insofar as they do not betray my own convictions. — Clara Schumann

Monster a person though monster not human.
Monster like music. Like Beatles! Like Schumann!
World full of stupid. World full of noise.
Monster feel ANGRY. No birthday. No joys.
World full of JUNK monster not comprehend.
What is a childhood? What is a friend?
Monster and human both want the same.
Want conversation. Want love. WANT NO PAIN.
If monster speak heart: monster life only worsen.
Monster not human: BUT MONSTER A PERSON! — Jennifer Finney Boylan

Look deeply into life, and study it as diligently as the other arts and sciences. — Robert Schumann

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

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

You will be most readily cured of vanity or presumption by studying the history of music, and by hearing the master pieces which have been produced at different periods. — Robert Schumann

You write to become immortal, or because the piano happens to be open, or you've looked into a pair of beautiful eyes. — Robert Schumann

He gives me the impression of being a spoilt child.

(on Liszt) — Clara Schumann

The flame that is naturally clear always gives the most light and heat. If I could blend my talent for poetry and music into one, the light would burn still clearer, and I might go far. — Robert Schumann

Only when the form grows clear to you, will the spirit become so too. — Robert Schumann

It is impossible to communicate with Schumann. The man is hopeless; he doesn't talk at all. — Richard Wagner

A singer whose ear is singly directed to the melodic aspects of a Brahms lied or a Verdi aria lacks perception of the musical web from which the melodic line emerges; the composer's intent may remain unrealized. to sing Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, or Strauss lieder without an understanding of underlying harmonic structures is to vocalize on them, not to conceive of them musically and emotionally. — Richard Miller

The aesthetic principle is the same in every art, only the material differs. — Robert Schumann

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

Play always as if in the presence of a master. — Robert Schumann

The melody rose, unprofitably magical. It broke; it was resumed broken, not marching once from the cradle to the grave. The sadness of the incomplete - the sadness that is often Life, but should never be Art - throbbed in its disjected phrases, and made the nerves of the audience throb. Not thus had she played on the little draped piano at the Bertolini, and "Too much Schumann" was not the remark that Mr. Beebe had passed to himself when she returned. — E. M. Forster

How can you have faith in human nature when you think that a sewer and certain moments of Schumann or Brahms are connected by secret, shadowy, subterranean passageways. — Ernesto Sabato

By means of industry and perseverance you will rise higher and higher. — Robert Schumann

Schumann's 'Quintet in E flat for Piano and Strings' is one of the sublime moments in Romantic music. — Robert Gottlieb

Does it not seem as if Mozart's works become fresher and fresher the oftener we hear them? — Robert Schumann

Without enthusiasm nothing great can be effected in art. — Robert Schumann

I sometimes lack confidence in public, although I am proud enough inwardly. — Robert Schumann

Know what you want to do - then do it. Make straight for your goal and go undefeated in spirit to the end. — Ernestine Schumann-Heink

I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose - there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one? — Clara Schumann

I cannot give a single concert at which I do not play one piece after the other in an agony of terror because my memory threatens to fail me. This fear torments me for days beforehand. — Clara Schumann

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

We have learned to express the more delicate nuances of feeling by penetrating more deeply into the mysteries of harmony. — Robert Schumann

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

I wish to lead a life free from care, and I see that I shall be unhappy if I cannot always work at my art. — Clara Schumann

To compose is to remember music that has never been written. — Robert Schumann

The tea is ice-cold, the room grows colder and colder, but I grow warmer and warmer. — Clara Schumann

And if the little flowers knew how deeply wounded my heart is They would weep with me to heal my pain. - "AND IF THE LITTLE FLOWERS KNEW" BY HEINRICH HEINE, MUSIC BY ROBERT SCHUMANN — Alan Elsner

The study of jurisprudence, by which I must earn my bread, has so withered and frozen the flowers of my fancy that they will never again seek the light. (To his Mother, November 11, 1829) — Robert Schumann

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

Music owes as much to Bach as religion to its founder. — Robert Schumann

Professor Schumann Antelme makes it clear that the Egyptians viewed the tomb as a remote-control switch that caused actions in heaven in response to the terrestrial activities with which they were associated. This concept can be summed up best by the alchemists' celebrated formula of "as above, so below," which in other words means that there is a precise correspondence between heaven and earth. This theory is also the rationale behind astrology and other esoteric doctrines. The alchemical tradition, and all religious tradition, had its origin in the sacred science of the ancient Egyptians. — Ruth Schumann Antelme

A fiery, good beginner always stands higher than a master in mediocrity ... — Robert Schumann

Believe me, were I ever to accomplish anything, it would be in music, which has always attracted me; and, without overestimating myself, I am conscious of possessing a certain creative faculty. — Robert Schumann

I do not want horses or diamonds - I am happy in possessing you. — Clara Schumann

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts
such is the duty of the artist. — Robert Schumann

True originality has its foundations in the soul, not in the mind, and when there is an effort to create something different it is usually a failure. Beethoven or Schumann or Chopin did not try to be original. They were original. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

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

The fact is that when the frequency of your DNA hits the Schumann Resonance, your experience of time stops completely. These are truths that are still experienced and embodied by many of the indigenous cultures alive on our planet today. To live closely to the earth's natural rhythms is to experience the wisdom and clarity that comes of moving more slowly through the world. — Richard Rudd

Is an artist much more than a beggar? — Clara Schumann

There is nothing greater than the joy of composing something oneself and then listening to it. — Clara Schumann

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

The Germans are incapable of any conception of greatness: proof Schumann. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Talent works, genius creates. — Robert Schumann

Treasures are no longer to be got by instrumental art. — Clara Schumann

"We liked it" or "I didn't like it" people say. As if it were nothing higher than to please the people! — Robert Schumann

We shouldn't repeat the same for ages on end, but look into the new as well. — Robert Schumann

Music induces nightingales to sing, pug dogs to yelp. — Robert Schumann

When you play, never mind who listens to you. — Robert Schumann

If all would play first violin, we could not obtain an orchestra. Therefore esteem every musician in his place. — Robert Schumann

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

If I have known much trouble in my youth, I have also known much joy. — Clara Schumann

If, while at the piano, you attempt to form little melodies, that is very well; but if they come into your mind of themselves, when you are not practising, you may be still more pleased; for the internal organ of music is then roused in you. The fingers must do what the head desires; not the contrary. — Robert Schumann

Endeavour to play easy pieces well and with elegance; that is better than to play difficult pieces badly. — Robert Schumann

I was a God-fearing child, innocent and physically attractive. — Robert Schumann

Composing gives me great pleasure ... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one wins hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound. — Clara Schumann

You should diligently play scales and fingerpractices. There are many, however, who believe they'll achieve all, by practicing daily on technique for hours on end, up till high age. It's like practicing every day to enumerate the alfabet faster and faster. One would think one could make better use of their valuable time. — Robert Schumann

Let your intimate friends be chosen from such as are better informed than yourself. — Robert Schumann

My whole life has been a struggle between Poetry and Prose, or call it Music and Law. — Robert Schumann

How often have I actually discovered in myself that enthusiasm raises the artist above himself, how in an ordinary mood one would not have been able to accomplish many of the things for which enthusiasm lends one everything, energy, fire. — Clara Schumann