“Of all god-gifted dispensers of joy, Johann Strauss is to me the most endearing. I willingly admit to having sometimes conducted the Perpetuum Mobile with far more pleasure than many a four movement symphony.”
Recollections and Reflections
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Richard Strauss 31
German composer and orchestra director 1864–1949Related quotes

English and Welsh (1955)

In a letter to a friend, as quoted in Hammarskjöld (1972) by Brian Urquhart

Source: 1910's, The Art of Noise', 1913, p. 6
Context: Each sound carries with it a nucleus of foreknown and foregone sensations predisposing the auditor to boredom, in spite of all the efforts of innovating composers. All of us have liked and enjoyed the harmonies of the great masters. For years, Beethoven and Wagner have deliciously shaken our hearts. Now we are fed up with them. This is why we get infinitely more pleasure imagining combinations of the sounds of trolleys, autos and other vehicles, and loud crowds, than listening once more, for instance, to the heroic or pastoral symphonies.

God doesn't believe in atheists (2002)