Now Playing

The 17 best insults in classical music

A compendium of the most entertaining insults from composers, conductors and musicians - thoroughly entertaining stuff.

1. Beethoven on a critic

“Oh you arch-ass - you double-barrelled ass!” Ludwig van Beethoven on critic Gottfried Weber
2. Strauss on Schoenberg

“He’d be better off shovelling snow than scribbling on manuscript paper.” Richard Strauss on Arnold Schoenberg
3. Wagner on Rossini

"After Rossini dies, who will there be to promote his music?” - Richard Wagner
4. Hanslick on Tchaikovsky

“It gives us, for the first time, the hideous notion that there can be music which stinks to the ear.” - Eduardo Hanslick on Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto
5. Berlioz on Handel

“A tub of pork and beer.” Hector Berlioz on Georg Frideric Handel
6. Toscanini on his orchestra

“After I die, I shall return to earth as a gatekeeper of a bordello and I won't let any of you enter.” - Arturo Toscanini to the NBC Orchestra
7. Nietzsche on Wagner

“Is Wagner actually a man? Is he not rather a disease? Everything he touches falls ill; he has made music sick.” Friedrich Nietzsche
8. Berlioz

Berlioz, musically speaking, is a lunatic.” Dramatic and Musical Review, 1843
9. Stravinsky on Villa-Lobos

“Why is it that whenever i hear a piece of music i don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?” Igor Stravinsky
10. Ravel on Saint-Saëns

“If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have been better for music.” - Maurice Ravel on Camille Saint-Saëns
11. Tchaikovsky on Borodin

He can’t compose a single note without someone’s help.” - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky on Alexander Borodin
12. The Times on Verdi

“The impersonation of all that is most foul and hideous in human nature.” - The Times on Verdi’s La Traviata
13. Beecham on Beethoven

“Beethoven’s last quartets were written by a deaf man and should only be listened to by a deaf man.” - Sir Thomas Beecham
14. Vaughan Williams on Mahler

"A very tolerable imitation of a composer.” Ralph Vaughan Williams on Gustav Mahler
15. Wagner on Chopin

“A composer for one right hand.” Richard Wagner on Frederic Chopin
16. Satie on Debussy

“I liked the bit about quarter to eleven.” Erik Satie on Claude Debussy’s ‘La Mer’
17. Oscar Wilde on Wagner

“It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage.” Oscar Wilde on Richard Wagner