1.
I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.
Richard Strauss
2.
The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but the most difficult to play.
Richard Strauss
3.
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.
Richard Strauss
4.
I shall never be converted, and I shall remain true to my old religion of the classics until my life's end.
Richard Strauss
5.
Ideas, like young wine, should be put in storage and taken up again only after they have been allowed to ferment and to ripen.
Richard Strauss
6.
Its a funny thing Alice, dying is just the way I composed it in Tod und Verklärung.
Richard Strauss
7.
On conducting: If you can just barely hear the French horns on stage, the balance is perfect.
Richard Strauss
8.
If you think that the brass is not blowing loud enough, mute it by a couple of degrees.
Richard Strauss
9.
Never look at the trombones, you'll just encourage them.
Richard Strauss
10.
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.
Richard Strauss
11.
Never look at the brass - it only encourages them.
Richard Strauss
12.
Must one become seventy years old to recognize that one's greatest strength lies in creating musical kitsch?
Richard Strauss
13.
He'd be better off shoveling snow.
Richard Strauss
14.
don't perspire while conducting - only the audience should get warm.
Richard Strauss
15.
The aria, after all, is the soul of opera.
Richard Strauss