“The Pianoforte Sonatas of Beethoven must always be among the choicest possessions of all who love music and especially of those who make music their main object and study.”
Introduction to Tovey's Edition of the Beethoven Sonatas
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Donald Tovey 1
British composer 1875–1940Related quotes

Preface to Instructive ausgabe. Klavier-Etuden von Fr. Chopin, 1880.

“Only those who listen to music with the heart can experience the vibrations of love.”
Original: (it) Solo chi ascolta musica col cuore riesce a provare le vibrazioni dell'amore.
Source: prevale.net

Quoted by Claudia Cassidy, " In Memory of William Kapell, Who Left Us Richer in Music http://www.williamkapell.com/articles/cassidy.html", Chicago Tribune (October 30, 1953).
Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 2 : Fragments

“The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods.”

'Pierre Monteux in his own words', Classic Record Collector, Autumn 2003, Number 34, p. 18

“Those who dance appear insane to those who cannot hear the music.”
Misattributed
First recorded appearance: Germaine de Staël's On Germany (1813). ". . . sometimes even in the habitual course of life, the reality of this world disappears all at once, and we feel ourselves in the middle of its interests as we should at a ball, where we did not hear the music; the dancing that we saw there would appear insane." There are several other pre-Nietzsche examples, indicating that the phrase was widespread in the nineteenth-century; it was referred to in 1927 as an "old proverb".