Gustav Mahler Quotes

I don’t choose what I compose. It chooses me.

To write a symphony is, for me, to construct a world.

Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.

When I have reached a summit, I leave it with great reluctance, unless it is to reach for another, higher one.

Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one’s contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one’s way.

The call of love sounds very hollow among these immobile rocks.

You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.

The point is not to take the world’s opinion as a guiding star but to go one’s way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.

If you think you’re boring your audience, go slower not faster.

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.

That which draws us by its mystical force; what every created thing, even the very stones, feels with absolute certainty as the center of its being… is the force of love. Christians call this “eternal blessedness.” It is a necessity of man for growth and joy.

I don’t let myself get carried away by my own ideas – I abandon 19 out of 20 of them every day.

The longer you live and the more you learn, the more clearly you will feel the difference between the few men who are truly great and the mere virtuosi.

There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.

An operetta is simply a small and gay opera.

Fortunately, something always remains to be harvested. So let us not be idle.

Spring won’t let me stay in this house any longer! I must get out and breathe the air deeply again.

Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

It is easier to achieve a desired result in short pieces.

It is a funny thing, but when I am making music, all the answers I seek for in life seem to be there, in the music. Or rather, I should say, when I am making music, there are no questions and no need for answers.

I have become a different person. I don’t know whether this person is better, he certainly is not happier.

It should be one’s sole endeavor to see everything afresh and create it anew.

Tradition is tending the flame, not worshiping the ashes.

I was a crazy young man who let himself be blinded by his passions and obeyed only the impulses of the moment.

If I weren’t the way I am, I shouldn’t write my symphonies.

I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.

I beg of you… never assume an inner or an outer pose, never a disguise.

I also had a brother who was like me a musician and a composer. A man of great talent, far more gifted than I. He died very young… he killed himself in the prime of his life.

In Bach, the vital cells of music are united as the world is in God.

What I wanted and what I visualized while composing has not always been realized.

I hope you will no longer accuse me of a lack of delicacy. as I now count on your understanding.

In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.