Richard Strauss Quotes

Never look encouragingly at the brass, except with a brief glance to give an important cue.

I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.

I shall never be converted, and I shall remain true to my old religion of the classics until my life's end.

...for example, if Freud is wrong, as i and many others believe, where does that leave any number of novels and virtually the entire corpus of surrealism, Dada, and certain major forms of expressionism and abstraction, not to mention Richard Strauss' 'Freudian' operas such as Salome and Elektra, and the iconic novels of numerous writers such as D.H. Lawrence, Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann and Virginia Woolf? It doesn't render these works less beautiful or pleasurable, necessarily, but it surely dilutes their meaning. They don't owe their entire existence to psychoanalysis. But if they are robbed of a large part of their meaning, can they retain their intellectual importance and validity? Or do they become period pieces? I stress the point because the novels, paintings and operas referred to above have helped to popularise and legitimise a certain view of human nature, one that is, all evidence to the contrary lacking, wrong.

Among the required reading for all PUAs were books on evolutionary theory: The Red Queen by Matt Ridley, The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, Sperm Wars by Robin Baker. You read them, and you understand why women tend to like jerks, why men want so many sexual partners, and why so many people cheat on their spouses. At the same time, however, you understand that the violent impulses most of us successfully repress are actually normal and natural. For Mystery, a Darwinist by nature, these books gave him an intellectual justification for his antisocial emotions and his desire to harm the organism that had mated with his woman. It was not a healthy thing. Tyler

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.

Even the gentle composer Richard Strauss was carried away by anti-French feeling. He told Kessler in the summer of 1912 that he would go along when war broke out. What did he think he could do, his wife asked. Perhaps, Strauss said uncertainly, he could be a nurse. “Oh, you, Richard!” snapped his wife. “You can’t stand the sight of blood!” Strauss looked embarrassed but insisted: “I would do my best. But if the French get a thrashing, I want to be there.”24

Dedico-me à tempestade de Beethoven. A vibração das cores neutras de Bach. A Chopin que me amolece os ossos. A stravinsky que me espantou e com quem voei em fogo. Â morte e transfiguração, em que Richard Strauss me revela um destino? Sobretudo, dedico-me às vesperas de hoje e a hoje, ao trasnparente véu de Debussy, a Marlos Nobre, a Prokofiev,a Carl Orf, a Schönngberg, aos dodecafônicos, aos gritos rascantes dos eletronicos - a tonas esses que em mim atigiram zonas assutadoramente inesperadas, todos esses profetas do presente e que a mim me vaticinaram a mim mesmo a ponte de eu neste instante explodir em : eu. Esse eu que é vós pois não aguento ser apenas mim, preciso dos outros para me manter de pé, tão tonto que sou, eu enviesado, enfim que é que se há de fazer senão meditar para cair naquele vazio pleno que só se atinge com a meditação. Meditar não precisa de ter resultados: a meditação pode ter como fim apenas ela mesma. Eu medito sem palavras e sobre o nada. O que me atrapalha a vida é escrever.

In cultural production, Levi-Strauss famously declares, food is both good to eat (bonne a manger) and good to think with (bonne a penser). He means this literally: cooking food begets the idea of heating for other purposes; people who share parts of a cooked deer begin to think they can share parts of a heated house; the abstraction "he is a warm person" (in the sense of "sociable") then becomes possible to think.14 These are domain shifts.

A week after testifying, Rabi ran into Ernest Lawrence at Oak Ridge and asked him what he was going to say about Oppenheimer. Lawrence had agreed to testify against him. He was truly fed up with his old friend. Oppie had opposed him on the hydrogen bomb and opposed the building of a second weapons lab at Livermore. And more recently, Ernest had come home from a cocktail party outraged upon being told that Oppie had years before had an affair with Ruth Tolman, the wife of his good friend Richard. He was angry enough to accede to Strauss’ request to testify against Oppenheimer in Washington. But the night before his scheduled appearance, Lawrence fell ill with an attack of colitis. The next morning, he called Strauss to tell him he could not make it. Sure that Lawrence was making excuses, Strauss argued with the scientist and called him a coward. Lawrence did not appear to testify against Oppenheimer. But Robb had interviewed him earlier and now made sure that the Gray Board

Die menschliche Stimme ist das schönste Instrument, aber es ist am schwierigsten zu spielen.

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

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.

I should have perished of despair in my youth but for the world created for me by that great German dynasty which began with Bach and will perhaps not end with Richard Strauss. Do not suppose for a moment that I learnt my art from English men of letters. True, they showed me how to handle English words; but if I had known no more than that, my works would never have crossed the Channel. My masters were the masters of a universal language: they were, to go from summit to summit, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner. Had the Germans understood any of these men, they would have hanged them. Fortunately they did not understand them, and therefore only neglected them until they were dead, after which they learnt to dance to their tunes with an easy conscience. For their sakes Germany stands consecrated as the Holy Land of the capitalist age, just as Italy, for its painters' sakes, is the Holy Land of the early unvulgarized Renascence; France, for its builders' sakes, of the age of Christian chivalry and faith; and Greece, for its sculptors' sakes, of the Periclean age.

Through dreaming, we can find our voice and know who we are. When we have a clear sense of identity, we can make things happen and act on the world; we can then speak the words that make our dreams become a reality. USING YOUR WORDS . . . The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but it is the most difficult to play. —Richard Strauss, nineteenth-century composer • What if you had words to describe your dreams and to advocate for your dreams and the people you love? Would being able to articulate your thoughts—verbally or in writing—help your dreams come true? • If you speak a foreign language, are you bolder in that second tongue? Do you say what you mean in a way that you don’t in your native tongue? As you are learning to advocate for your dreams, how can you draw on that “second tongue” confidence? • Does participating in social networking and regularly sharing your point of view—such as by blogging or tweeting—help you find your words and feel your way toward your dream? • We may know what our children want, but we ask them to use their words. Why is this important for them? Why is it important for us? • What can you do today to find your own voice, to trust that voice, to acquire the tools needed to achieve your dream? Can you try saying out loud, kindly, civilly what you really want, or really think, to your children, husband, friends, coworkers? • How is learning to say your name—to value it, to know that it means something—key to your dreaming? • If you’re feeling you want to get more done, what would happen if you focused on your identity for even a few moments a day?

Dr. Richard Strauss allows himself to be photographed with his Jewish grandchildren."'6

I’ve ordered Janáček, the Glagolitic Mass—you may not know it. Splendid work—beautifully recorded by Simon Rattle. And Richard Strauss, Four Last Songs—Jessye Norman. I’ve got several recordings by other sopranos, of course.

The same picture can be seen even more starkly in classical music – the nineteenth century had Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Debussy, Berlioz, Weber, Verdi, Wagner, Mahler, Brahms… the list just goes on and on. In the early twentieth century there were a few leftovers in Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Richard Strauss and then… nothing.

Before long, if you didn’t poison your teenage brain with absinthe or withdraw to a cork-lined room, you were expected at least to indulge in alienation, alcoholism, bullfights, or suicide. German and Austrian artists started with an unfair advantage, in that their whole society was fairly toxic. Mahler, Richard Strauss, Thomas Mann, even Rilke: men of immense talent immersed in a cultural neuroticism, a wooing of perversity, disease, and death.

J. S. Bach’s Cello Suites, the Aria from the Goldberg Variations and the ‘Erbarme Dich’ from his St Matthew Passion; Chopin’s Nocturnes; Messiaen’s Quatour pour la Fin de Temps; Górecki’s Third Symphony – composers have always nourished the interlacing of beauty and sadness. Lyrics only add more melancholy content: Richard Strauss’s ‘Morgen’ and the Vier Letzte Lieder; Tom Waits’ Closing Time and the songs of Rufus Wainwright; Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius; the strains and pains of sex and death in Wagner’s