Richard Strauss
The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but it is the most difficult to play.
Never look encouragingly at the brass, except with a short glance to give an important cue.
I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.
Bear in mind that you are not making music for your own pleasure, but for the pleasure of your audience.
Never let the horns and woodwinds out of your sight; if you can hear them at all, they are too loud.
The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but the most difficult to play.Collection: Beautiful
Ideas, like young wine, should be put in storage and taken up again only after they have been allowed to ferment and to ripen.Collection: Taken
I want to be able to depict in music a glass of beer so accurately that every listener can tell whether it is a Pilsner or a Kulmbacher.Collection: Beer
Never look at the trombones, you'll just encourage them.Collection: Looks
I shall never be converted, and I shall remain true to my old religion of the classics until my life's end.Collection: Ends
The most perfect melodic shapes are found in Mozart; he has the lightness of touch which is the true objective ... Listen to the remarkable expansion of a Mozart melody, to Cherubino's 'Voi che sapete', for instance. You think it is coming to an end, but it goes farther, even farther.Collection: Thinking
Its a funny thing Alice, dying is just the way I composed it in Tod und Verklärung.Collection: Funny Things
The aria, after all, is the soul of opera.Collection: Soul
On conducting: If you can just barely hear the French horns on stage, the balance is perfect.Collection: Perfect
Must one become seventy years old to recognize that one's greatest strength lies in creating musical kitsch?Collection: Lying
don't perspire while conducting - only the audience should get warm.Collection: Conducting
If you think that the brass is not blowing loud enough, mute it by a couple of degrees.Collection: Couple
Never look at the brass - it only encourages them.Collection: Music
He'd be better off shoveling snow.Collection: Snow