Gustav Mahler Quotes

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

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

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

What is best in music is not to be found in the notes.

But it's peculiar, as soon as I am in the midst of nature and by myself, everything that is base and trivial vanishes without trace. On such days nothing scares me; and this helps me again and again.

The important thing is never to let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries; to continue steadfastly on one's way without letting oneself be either defeated by failure or diverted by applause.

All that is not perfect down to the smallest detail is doomed to perish.

Man lives in greatest pain

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

The important thing is never to let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries; to continue steadfastly on one's way without letting oneself be either defeated by failure or diverted by applause.

Freud? He tries to cure everything from one particular angle.” “Which angle are you talking about?” Mahler remained silent. Impossible to mention the word sexuality in the presence of a woman, even if she is your own wife. *

Wenn die Welt einmal untergehen sollte, ziehe ich nach Wien, denn dort passiert alles fünfzig Jahre später.

The ceaseless motion and incomprehensible bustle of life. Feigenbaum recalled the words of Gustav Mahler, describing a sensation that he tried to capture in the third movement of his Second Symphony. Like the motions of dancing figures in a brilliantly lit ballroom into which you look from the dark night outside and from such a distance that the music is inaudible…. Life may appear senseless to you.

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

A symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.” —Gustav Mahler

And now this musician. I’m on holiday, my god. But I suppose that I must. Mahler, the great Gustav Mahler must not be ignored. Don’t even want to ignore him. This case will be much too interesting, whatever it may be.

Even before the First World War there was a strain in European art and music – in Germany more than anywhere – that was turning from ripeness to over-ripeness and then into something else. The last strains of the Austro-German Romantic tradition – exemplified by Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Gustav Klimt – seemed almost to have destroyed itself by reaching a pitch of ripeness from which nothing could follow other than complete breakdown. It was not just that their subject matter was so death-obsessed, but that the tradition felt as though it could not be stretched any further or innovated any more without snapping. And so it snapped: in modernism and then post-modernism.

He who in the opera knew Gustav Mahler’s iron discipline, which extended to the minutest detail, or realized the Philharmonic’s matter-of-fact energetic exactitude, today is rarely satisfied by any musical or theatrical performance.

I have to face myself. And my wife. Please, I need a consultation... soon...aware you have a lot of work... nevertheless, please: soon!” Sigmund Freud rubbed the telegram between his fingers. A musician!

At the age of six, Mahler accepted paid commissions as a composer, something he was never to do in later life, his mother having promised him two kreuzers on condition that he did not make any ink blots on the expensive music manuscript paper.

Then I ran to mum and demanded: 'Mum, either the piano disappears from the house or I do! Decide!' And... the piano disappeared. It was literature that I taught to Aennchen instead. In short: music disturbs! Goethe wasn’t thrilled about this either. No instruments in my house. Martha had insisted: 'But the girls, the girls, they need to learn music!' Rubbish, it’s better to read instead.

This time I am not going to Amsterdam, only as far as Leiden. “Only?” I’d prefer Mengelberg to Freud? It’s better to practice now with the Konzertgebouw than with this... But it’s been agreed upon. I cannot withdraw now. No if's and but's. Surrender to the man..., to the analysis of course, like to music. All good and evil forces... Almaria... What? Alma. And above all, the winner sits on her throne. My play of strings. Longing.

The emblem of the city, sir. Two crossed keys. The Holy St.Peter is our patron. These are his keys, you understand... ” Hesitant, eagerly waiting for consent, “...the ones that open the door to heaven. Leiden is also known as the 'City of Keys.' Once in the first row, a dyked village, you know, we won human culture from the untamed nature of the North Sea that spilt up to us in a wildly chaotic manner from the source of the Rhine.

Good-natured and naive, sometimes even childlike, he looks out at the world with fairytale eyes from behind large crystal spectacles. He is modern in every respect. He believes in the future, which left me feeling that I am no more than a grieving 'Romantic'. I can tell you that his presence did me a world of good. I told him as much in a short and fairly emphatic letter, telling him that his music seems to possess the gift of 'transforming people' and of providing a sense of 'catharsis'. That is no small achievement.

Brahms' friends in Budapest finally managed to talk him into attending the performance of Don Giovanni - he had initially turned down their invitation, arguing that he preferred to read the score and had never seen or heard a decent performance of the work. He would even prefer a cold beer, he insisted. But in the end he allowed his friends to drag him along to their box, where he demonstratively settled down on a sofa at the back in the hope of enjoying a rest. But it was not long before he was making increasingly inarticulate noises indicative of his enthusiasm, and at the end of the first act he was heard to shout out: 'Most excellent, admirable, what a deuce of a fellow!' He then ran on to the stage and embraced Mahler with typically grumpy cordiality.

His body was racked with movement and in the semi-darkness he looked like some kind of fairy-tale goblin engaged in a flurry of hocus-pocus. In the harsh spotlight that lit up the rostrum his face was fascinatingly ugly and had a ghastly pallor, ringed as it was by his waving hair. Every little shift in the orchestra was reflected in his sensitive features: one moment he would be dampening something down, which would knot the skin round his eyes into grim folds accompanied by a lifting of his nose; the next moment he would be smiling in confluence with the sweet strains of the orchestra, radiating his approval and enjoyment, so that it was a case of both devils and angels crossing his visage in turn. Lightning flashed from his spectacle lenses with each sharp movement of his head, and from behind the lenses his eyes shone forth, watchful, assertive and demanding attention - every inch of his frame was simultaneously both an instrument of command and a means of expression.

Asteria’s Ship’s Library Sailing Books Admiralty, NP 136, Ocean Passages of the World, 1973 (1895).  Admiralty, NP 303 / AP 3270, Rapid Sight Reduction Tables for Navigation Vol 1 & Vol 2 & Vol3. Admiralty, The Nautical Almanac 2018 & 2019. Errol Bruce: Deep Sea Sailing, 1954. K. Adlard Coles: Heavy Weather Sailing, 1967. Tom Cunliffe: Celestial Navigation, 1989. Andrew Evans: Single Handed Sailing, 2015. Rob James: Ocean Sailing, 1980. Robin Knox-Johnston: A World of my Own, 1969. Robin Knox-Johnston: On Seamanship & Seafaring, 2018. Bernard Moitessier: The Long Route, 1971. Hal Roth: Handling Storms at Sea, 2009. Spike Briggs & Campbell Mackenzie: Skipper's Medical Emergency Handbook, 2015 Essays Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus & Other Essays, 1955. Biographies Pamela Eriksson: The Duchess, 1958. Olaf Harken: Fun Times in Boats, Blocks & Business, 2015. Martti Häikiö: VA Koskenniemi 1–2, 2009. Eino Koivistoinen: Gustaf Erikson – King of Sailing Ships, 1981. Erik Tawaststjerna: Jean Sibelius 1–5, 1989. Novels Ingmar Bergman: The Best Intentions, 1991. Bo Carpelan: Axel, 1986. Joseph Conrad: The End of the Tether, 1902. Joseph Conrad: Youth and Other Stories 1898–1910.  Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, 1902. Joseph Conrad: Lord Jim, 1900. James Joyce: Ulysses, 1922, (translation Pentti Saarikoski 1982). Volter Kilpi: In the Alastalo Hall I – II, 1933. Thomas Mann: Buddenbrooks, 1925. Harry Martinson: The Road, 1948. Hjalmar Nortamo: Collected Works, 1938. Marcel Proust: In Search of Lost Time 1–10, 1922. Poems Aaro Hellaakoski: Collected Poems. Homer: Odysseus, c. 700 BC (translation Otto Manninen). Harry Martinson: Aniara, 1956. Lauri Viita: Collected Poems. Music Classic Jean Sibelius Sergei Rachmaninov Sergei Prokofiev Gustav Mahler Franz Schubert Giuseppe Verdi Mozart Carl Orff Richard Strauss Edvard Grieg Max Bruch Jazz Ben Webster Thelonius Monk Oscar Peterson Miles Davis Keith Jarrett Errol Garner Dizzy Gillespie & Benny Dave Brubeck Stan Getz Charlie Parker Ella Fitzgerald John Coltrane Other Ibrahim Ferrer, Buena Vista Social Club Jobim & Gilberto, Eric Clapton Carlos Santana Bob Dylan John Lennon Beatles Sting Rolling Stones Dire Straits Mark Knopfler Moody Blues Pink Floyd Jim Morrison The Doors Procol Harum Leonard Cohen Led Zeppelin Kim Carnes Jacques Brel Yves Montand Edit Piaf

Tradition ist die Weitergabe des Feuers, nicht die Anbetung der Asche

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

Es gibt auch die Wunde Mahler; sie will und wird sich nicht schließen, solange es eine menschliche Gesellschaft gibt, die der Versöhnung ermangelt. Von diesem Mangel spricht Mahlers Musik so deutlich wie kaum eine Zweite.

As the young husband and wife lay in each other’s arms, each contemplating past, present, and future, Clint recognized the music as the adagietto from Gustav Mahler’s fifth symphony. It was one of the most famous movements in the entire symphonic repertoire, but it was also one of the most debated. Mahler ostensibly composed the adagietto as a love song to his wife, Alma, but when played at the much slower tempo preferred by many conductors, the music instead evokes a feeling of profound melancholy. After almost eighty years, musicologists and aficionados still couldn’t agree whether the music was supposed to be happy or sad, whether it was an expression of intense love and devotion or of unmitigated despair. Clint was struck by the irony that this music would be playing at this moment in his life, and his mouth curled into an ambivalent smile. Was he happy? Was he sad? Would he ever again be certain?

During the period when Schoenberg actually hoped to earn an income from the works, forty of his paintings were shown in a small one-man exhibit in Vienna in 1910. Later some of his work was exhibited alongside that of painters such as Franz Marc, Wassily Kandinsky, Henri Rousseau, and Egon Schiele. Gustav Mahler anonymously purchased some of these paintings to help support the painter/composer. In

Misery is everywhere. It wears the strangest guises to mock us poor human beings. If you know a single happy person on this earth, tell me his name quickly, before I lose the little courage to face life that I still have.

When I emerged from the Festival Theatre, incapable of uttering a word, I knew I had come to understand all that is greatest and most painful in the world and that I would have to bear it within me, inviolate, for the whole of the rest of my life.

Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber Symphony Number 5 by Gustav Mahler “O mio babbino caro” from Giannia Schicchi by Puccini The Spruce, Op. 75 by Jean Sibelius Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copeland New World Symphony by Antonin Dvorak Piano Concerto in A Minor by Edvard Grieg Mephisto Waltz by Franz Liszt Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major by Johann Sebastian Bach Cello Sonata in G Minor, Op. 65 by Frederic Chopin

That is why I like to quote Gustav Mahler, that “tradition is not the repository of ashes but the preservation of fire.

Gustav Mahler always carried Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre with him on concert tours, for instance, and read aloud from the Critique of Pure Reason to Alma when she was in labour.

Fin de siècle Vienna was a melting pot that had produced Gustav Mahler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and Sigmund Freud. But when the empire’s narrower national identities—Serbs, Bulgarians, Czechs, and Austro-Germans—asserted themselves, the region descended into a paroxysm of violence and intolerance.