“Whoever communicates to his brothers in suffering the secret splendour of his dreams acts upon the surrounding society in the manner of a solvent and makes all those who understand him, often without their realisations, outlaws and rebels.” Pierre Quillard (symbolist poet), 1892.

British conductor Thomas Beecham was not too impressed with early recording technology (the gramophone): It was put to him that for people who lived in remote districts, far from orchestral concerts, the gramophone was an alternative: "It is no alternative to this," he said, waving his arm towards the hall, where the orchestra was waiting […]

No man can tell what the future may bring forth, and small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises. —  Demosthenes, Ad Leptinem, 162 Harbottle, Thomas Benfield (1897) Dictionary of Quotations (Classical).  London: S. Sonnenschein & co, p. 51.  Digitally archived at https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofquot00harbiala/page/511/mode/2up, accessed 12 September 2021. 

“Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water-bath is to the body.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, American physician, lecturer and author.

In a radio interview in 1937, Edward Elgar’s violinist friend William H. Reed described Elgar’s “distractions” while composing the violin concerto: I can never play the last movement without seeing the River Wye flowing past the meadow at Hereford where Sir Edward and I used to practise throwing a boomerang in our “off-time” between working […]

“Every disease is a music problem, its cure a musical solution.” Novalis, 18th century German author, mystic and philosopher. Cited in: Inge Kjemtrup, “The power of music therapy”, Pianist, Issue 59, April-May 2011. Warners Group Publications, p.66.

Plays in the Jacobean period (16th century England) were divided into acts to enable the theatre company to manage the candles. Source: Martin White, University of Bristol. “Shakespeare by Candlelight”, The Times, Cited in The Australian, 30 November 2012.

“You see behind me a symphony orchestra.  Every single one of the instruments has an entirely different background and history; they come from different places …; they’ve had different developments; they sound different… And so, the next time your soul sings, assailed with some sort of horrid indication that people can’t get along together, please […]

“Now I need to say a word to my sister about the Clementi sonatas.  – Anyone who plays them can hear or feel that as compositions they aren’t very much. – There are no remarkable striking passages, except the sixth and the octaves; – and even those I am asking my sister not to spend […]