10 of Beethoven’s most stirring quotes about music
15 December 2020, 12:01 | Updated: 25 January 2021, 10:43
It seems Beethoven was forever reeling off wise, philosophical quotes about music. As the world marks 250 years of the German revolutionary, here are some of his most memorable lines.
A quarter of a millennium after Beethoven’s birth, the world is still hanging on his every word. We remember the notorious LVB’s most inspiring quotes about music...
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Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.
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To play a wrong note is insignificant. To play without passion is inexcusable!
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Music should strike fire from the heart of man and bring tears from the eyes of woman.
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Don’t only practise your art, but force your way into its secrets
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Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.
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The guitar is a miniature orchestra in itself.
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Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind, but which mankind cannot comprehend.
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I would rather write 10,000 notes than a single letter of the alphabet.
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Music is like a dream. One that I cannot hear.
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What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.
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Join us on 16 December for Classic FM’s Big Beethoven Celebration, as we play the German composer’s music throughout the day on the 250th anniversary of his birth.