“Wagner exploited all forms of expression at a composer's disposal -- harmony, dynamics, orchestration -- to the extreme. His music is highly emotional, and at the same time Wagner has extraordinary control over the effect he achieves. That's why there is also something manipulative about Wagner's music, which is not to say that it's not honest. In fact, I believe that it's totally honest, but it also happens to be manipulative.”

— Daniel Barenboim

SPIEGEL Interview with Daniel Barenboim

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

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Daniel Barenboim 9

Israeli Argentine-born pianist and conductor 1942

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“Wagner's music is better than it sounds.”

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Actually by Bill Nye, possibly confused due to Nye quoting Twain in More Tramps Abroad, 1897. (See also autobiography, vol. 1, p. 288.)
Misattributed

“I did not care for Wagner. My tastes are more classical. Der Fuhrer had no musical taste and liked Wagner because of the bombastic Teutonic glories.”

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“Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches - he has made music sick.”

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“I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says.”

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Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“All innovators, logically speaking, have been Futurists in relation to their time. Palestrina would have thought that Bach was crazy, and Bach would have thought Beethoven the same, and Beethoven would have thought Wagner equally so.
Rossini liked to boast that he had finally understood the music of Wagner—by reading it backward; Verdi, after listening to the overture to Tannhäuser, wrote to a friend that Wagner was mad.
So we stand at the window of a glorious mental hospital, even while we unhesitatingly declare that counterpoint and the fugue, which even today are still considered the most important branches of musical instruction…”

Francesco Balilla Pratella (1880–1955) Italian composer

Original text:
Tutti gli innovatori sono stati logicamente futuristi, in relazione ai loro tempi. Palestrina avrebbe giudicato pazzo Bach, e così Bach avrebbe giudicato Beethoven, e così Beethoven avrebbe giudicato Wagner.
Rossini si vantava di aver finalmente capito la musica di Wagner leggendola a rovescio! Verdi, dopo un’audizione dell’ouverture del Tannhäuser, in una lettera a un suo amico chiamava Wagner matto.
Siamo dunque alla finestra di un manicomio glorioso, mentre dichiariamo, senza esitare, che il contrappunto e la fuga, ancor oggi considerati come il ramo più importante dell’insegnamento musicale...
Source: Technical Manifesto of Futurist Music (1911), p. 80

“The late Bill Nye once said "I have been told that Wagner's music is better than it sounds."”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 (2010), p. 288

“The relation of the performance of music to sound is complex and ambiguous: this is what makes possible Mark Twain's joke that Wagner is better than he sounds.”

Charles Rosen (1927–2012) American pianist and writer on music

Source: Piano Notes: The World of the Pianist (2002), Ch. 1 Body and Mind

“It is difficult composing endings. Beethoven and Wagner could do it. Only great composers can do it. I can do it too.”

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Other sources

“They say I was the greatest natural hitter of all time. Well that's saying a lot with hitters like Wagner, Cobb, Speaker and Ruth around.”

Joe Jackson (1887–1951) American baseball player

This is the Truth! (1949)
Context: They say I was the greatest natural hitter of all time. Well that's saying a lot with hitters like Wagner, Cobb, Speaker and Ruth around. I had good eyes and I guess that was the reason I hit as well as I did. I still don't use glasses today.

“Most snoring is composed by Beethoven or Wagner, although a few times Wiggs had heard heavy metal rock performed on the somnambulate bassoon.”

Tom Robbins book Jitterbug Perfume

Jitterbug Perfume (1984)

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