“Music is the highest art in the world.” Great minds - about music

Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the brilliant composers who worked in the era of classicism. His works are valued all over the world, some of them very easy to recognize. Who hasn't heard" Moonlight Sonata"? The composer had quite difficult character, he had a very difficult fate. he created brilliant music, and some of the composer’s statements have reached us. It is quite interesting to know what Beethoven said about music.

short biography

The composer was born on December 16, 1770 in Bonn. Since childhood, he had a hard time: his father, noticing his son’s musical talent, tried to make him a “second Mozart” - a child genius. Ludwig lost both parents early and at the age of 17 was forced to take on the responsibilities of head of the family and support his younger brothers.

Unfortunately, this event did not become the last blow fate. At the age of 26, the young composer and musician began to lose his hearing. And yet this did not stop him from continuing to make music.

The Great French Revolution was also a significant event in the composer’s life. bourgeois revolution 1789. Ludwig van Beethoven warmly accepted the ideals of the revolution... and their collapse after the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte became a new shock for him. And yet in the era of classicism they created amazing people. None life difficulties they could not break the composer, they could not interrupt his creative process.

During his life, the composer wrote 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 32 piano sonatas, an opera and much more.

Beethoven Quotes

Perhaps it is precisely because Beethoven was forced to communicate through writing that we can read many of his sayings. Undoubtedly, many quotes are dedicated to the composer’s favorite pastime.

Music should strike fire from people's hearts.

Music is a popular need.

Music is a mediator between the life of the mind and the life of feelings.

Music is a revelation higher than wisdom and philosophy. Music is one ethereal entrance to upper world knowledge that humanity comprehends, but which cannot be comprehended by man.

From Beethoven's quotes about music you can see how highly he valued musical art composer, elevating him even above wisdom and philosophy. And indeed, Johann Sebastian Bach proved that music is a philosophical art form, it is capable of revealing serious, “eternal” questions.

Some of the statements can be attributed not only to music, but to all art in general.

A true artist is devoid of vanity; he understands too well that art is inexhaustible.

The development of art and science has always been and will remain better connection between the most distant peoples.

Art! Who realized it? Who can be consulted regarding this great Goddess?

Only artists or free scientists carry their happiness within themselves.

The composer's fate was not simple and this was also expressed in his quotes. The philosophical thoughts of the German composer can teach a lot, even modern people.

Raise your children in virtue: it is the only one that can give happiness.

The heart is the true lever of all great things.

I know of no other signs of superiority other than kindness.

There are no barriers for a person with talent and love of work.

The highest characteristic of a person is perseverance in overcoming the most severe obstacles.

This is really a sign wonderful person: Perseverance in the face of adversity.

None of my friends should be in need as long as I have a piece of bread, if my wallet is empty, I am not able to help immediately, well, I just have to sit down at the table and get to work, and pretty soon I will help him to get out of trouble.

Nothing is more unbearable than having to admit your own mistakes.

And, of course, this difficult life You can't live without humor. Several of the composer's expressions are quite funny.

Only the pure at heart can make good soup.

To one German composer:

I liked your opera. Perhaps I'll write music for it.

• Ludwig van Beethoven never called his Sonata No. 14 "Moonlight". This was done by the music critic Ludwig Relstab in 1832
• When the composer realized that hearing loss was inevitable, he decided to take his own life. A document has been preserved - the composer's will. But the composition of Symphony No. 3 made the composer change his mind.
• Beethoven did not hear many of his brilliant works, for example the 9th symphony.
• The composer's inner ear was simply amazing - it is almost impossible to compose brilliant music without hearing it. The composer had a special piano with a louder sound, and he also tried to “hear” the music through vibrations - to do this, he held a pencil in his teeth and touched it to the instrument.

In school textbooks and specialized literature you can find detailed biographies of great composers who give detailed information about all the events of their lives. But sometimes minor incidents that remain “behind the scenes” form a much more complete picture of the personalities of musicians. The most funny stories from the lives of famous people composers - Beethoven, Bach, Schubert, Paganini, Haydn, Mozart– further in the review.

Ludwig van Beethoven
These stories sound anecdotal; it is difficult to say which of them actually took place in reality. But knowing what character traits great composers showed in their interactions with others, we can assume that they are reliable. So, everyone talked about the quarrelsome and gloomy character of Ludwig van Beethoven. He was uncompromising and categorical even in his dealings with loved ones. His younger brother Johann saved up money, bought an estate and was very proud of it. One day he sent his elder brother business card, proudly signed “Johann van Beethoven. Landowner". The composer sent the card back with his signature on the back: “Ludwig van Beethoven. Brainmaster."

Johann Sebastian Bach
Once, one of the listeners, amazed by the virtuoso playing of Johann Sebastian Bach, asked him: “You play any music very naturally. Can you tell me how you can learn to play like that faster?” Bach replied: “In order to play music, you don’t need to study at all. There is, of course, nothing complicated about this. It is only necessary in right time press the required keys with your fingers.” Bach was generally a famous joker. Sometimes he disguised himself as a poor school teacher, and in some provincial church he asked permission to play the church organ. His music was so magnificent and powerful that many parishioners ran away in fright, thinking that the devil had entered the church in disguise.

Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert lived in constant need. His largest earnings - 800 florins per concert - were enough for only a few weeks: Schubert bought a piano (previously the instrument had to be rented), paid off his debts - and the money ran out again. After the composer’s death, the inventory of all his property fit into 4 lines; only clothes and bed linen were mentioned there.

Niccolo Paganini

Once, being late for a concert, Niccolo Paganini hired a cab driver and was very surprised when he, instead of the usual fee, quoted an amount ten times larger. When asked why, the cab driver replied: “You charge 10 francs per ticket from everyone who comes to listen to you play on one string.” Paganini replied: “Okay, I will pay you 10 francs, but only if you take me to the theater on one wheel.”

Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn, conducting an orchestra in London, knew that listeners often come to concerts out of tradition, and not for the love of the music itself. Such connoisseurs of beauty often fell asleep at concerts. Haydn decided to take revenge on the indifferent listeners: when performing a new symphony, he included a deafening drumbeat in those moments when the audience calmed down and relaxed. Since then, this symphony has been called “Symphony with Timpani Strikes”, or “Surprise”.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart answered questions about his work with childlike spontaneity. Sometimes this was actually explained by age: when he was about 14, after a performance a teenager approached him and asked how to learn to play like that. “It’s not difficult at all, you just use notes to write down the melody you like. You just have to try,” Mozart replied. The interlocutor said that he is better at writing poetry. The composer suggested that this was even more difficult than writing music. "Stop doing that! “It’s very easy, just try,” the young man, who, according to legend, turned out to be Goethe, objected to him.

Many great musicians, poets, music critics admired the genius of J. S. Bach, as evidenced by those that have come down to us historical facts and documents. The article collects some similar statements about German composer and his creativity.

Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg on Bach:

"AND. S. Bach arrived in Dresden and, with the consent of the king, without Marchant knowing about it, was admitted as a listener to the next concert at court. When, among others, Marchand performed a French song at this concert and was applauded for a very long time for his pure and fiery performance and for his skillful variations, then Bach, who was standing next to him, was invited to try the clavier. He accepted the invitation, preluded briefly but masterfully and, before anyone could have expected it, repeated the song played by Marchand and varied it with new art in a way never before heard a dozen times. Marchand, who had hitherto been inferior to any organist, had, without a doubt, to recognize the superiority of his current opponent. For when Bach allowed himself to invite him to a friendly competition on the organ and at the end presented him with a theme sketched in pencil on a piece of paper to process it without preparation, asking him for a theme for himself, then Mr. Marchand was not on the chosen battlefield showed up and considered it more useful to leave Dresden by extra mail.”

Alexander Nikolaevich Serov about Bach:

“There was a time when the whole musical world looked at the music of Sebastian Bach as school pedantic rubbish, old stuff, which sometimes, as, for example, in “Clavecin bien temp?r?”, is suitable for finger exercises, along with Moscheles’ etudes and exercises Cherny. Since the time of Mendelssohn, taste has leaned again towards Bach, even much more than at the time when he himself lived - and now there are still “directors of conservatories” who, in a time of conservatism, are not ashamed to teach their pupils to play Bach’s fugues without expressiveness, those. like “exercises”, like finger-breaking exercises... If there is anything in the field of music that must be approached not from under a ferula with a pointer in hand, but with love in the heart, with fear and faith, then it is precisely the works of the great Bach "

“...The polyphonic style, along with the ability for harmony, requires great melodic talent in the composer. It is impossible to get away with harmony alone, that is, a deft combination of chords. It is necessary for each voice to move independently and be interesting in its melodic progression. And from this side, unusually rare in the region musical creativity, there is no artist not only equal to Johann Sebastian Bach, but even in any way suitable to his melodic richness. If we understand the word “melody” not in the sense of visitors to the Italian opera, but in the true sense of the independent, free movement of musical speech in each voice, a movement that is always deeply poetic and deeply meaningful, there is no greater melodist in the world than Bach.”

Johannes Brahms on Bach:

"If all musical literature“Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann disappeared, that would be extremely sad, but if we lost Bach, I would be inconsolable.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on Bach:

“...the Leipzig cantor is a divine phenomenon: he is clear and yet inexplicable.”

Boris Vladimirovich Asafiev about Bach:

"AND. S. Bach is such a giant that he is perceived not as a person, but as powerful creative laboratory, in which all the creative skills, styles, trends and pursuits of the music of his time were reforged.”

“Balakirevtsy” about Bach:

(N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, “Chronicle of my musical life”)

"WITH. Bach was considered petrified, even just a musical-mathematical, insensitive and deathly nature, composing like some kind of machine.”

Nikolai Andreevich Rimsky-Korsakov about Bach:

“Counterpoint was the poetic language of a brilliant composer.”

Pietro Mascagni on Bach:

“Verdi rated Bach extremely highly and called him the most modern of all polyphonists.”

Robert Schumann on Bach:

“Bach was a man through and through, there was nothing half-hearted or painful in him, everything was written as if for eternity.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on Bach:

“There is a lot to learn here!”

Ludwig van Beethoven on Bach:

“He is not a stream - he is an ocean.”

Bach about himself:

“I had to work hard, whoever works just as hard will achieve the same.”

The leader of the noble assembly, Oleg Shcherbachev, spoke about the “composer of all times and peoples,” the mystic and theologian Johann Sebastian Bach, as part of the “Event” club.

If you think that, having lived a good half of the 18th century, the Baroque century, Johann Sebastian Bach was his contemporary, then you are only partly right. In the traditions of the medieval worldview, he wrote his music, beginning and ending with prayer, and sounded old-fashioned to his contemporaries. However, the unknown instrument, for which some of his works were written, was invented only after his death, and individual moves of his compositions began to sound as usual only in the 20th century.

Johann Sebastian Bach

In Bach's music we often hear a step, a step. Pace is key here. The measure of speed, as I recently realized, is the rhythm of the heart. If you play like you breathe, then everything works out correctly.

As a composer, Bach remained almost unchanged throughout his life, which is very rare for any creator. His musical language formed when he was about 20, and he died when he was 65. I assume that in 1706 or 1707 Bach experienced some kind of strong mystical shock. We don’t know which one, but it turned his life upside down, he came to know – as Dostoevsky would say – the living God and then went through his entire creative path based on this experience.

From a biographical point of view, Bach lived two lives. By everyday standards, he was an ordinary German burgher: he moved from one service to another, very prudently choosing where it was more profitable for him to work, where the salary was higher. In a letter to a friend, he once complained that due to good weather his funeral “accidents” had noticeably decreased. This is also Bach.

We are accustomed to the image of a romantic creator, whose life and creativity are inextricably linked: he creates, refracting his life into creativity. But Bach is an anti-romantic. He is a medieval creator. The external side of his life has practically nothing to do with creativity. But creativity for him is not even 99 percent, but more. Ordinary life is just a shell, a shell, it is completely uninteresting in comparison with creativity, because he creates about God and for God. How much do we know about life path Andrey Rublev? And how important is it to know his biography in order to understand his icons? Compared to his “Trinity” it is absolutely not interesting. Bach's music is a musical icon. The life of an icon painter is not part of the icon.

For Bach, the process of writing notes was very important. At the end of the score he always wrote " SoliDeogloria"("Glory to God alone" - edit.), and at the beginning - “Lord, help me.” That’s why you can play Bach only by praying: when you play, it’s as if you’re saying the Jesus Prayer. Only a few succeeded. For example, Albert Schweitzer, a famous Protestant theologian and humanist. In his performances you hear that Bach’s music is always a prayer, but the most amazing thing is that it is not only a prayer, but also a dialogue. Bach doesn't just pray, he hears answers. This is unique for the composer! Bach's music is a conversation between man and God.

Bach and sons

One of the most important works Bach - “High Mass”, or Mass in B minor, which he wrote almost all his life: he began in 1720, and finished just before his death. According to popular belief, Bach's last work is The Art of Fugue, but this is not entirely true. It was established that it was practically completed in 1747 (however, the last fugue remained unfinished).

It is interesting that Bach wrote this mass, knowing full well that it would never be performed. Those parts of the mass that were performed in the then Lutheran church (“Kyrie” and “Gloria”) are so huge here that it is impossible to imagine them in liturgical practice. The entire Mass was simply not performed in the Protestant church. And the mystery remains: why would a convinced Protestant Lutheran write an absolutely Catholic Mass, and “the best Mass of all times and peoples”? I found this answer for myself. It lies in the fact that Bach goes far beyond Protestantism and belongs to the entirety of the Christian tradition.

For me personally, “Kyrie” from this mass is a church-wide, universal cry to God. Humanity, in the person of Johann Sebastian Bach, managed to write such a mass, and I think this is a significant argument in favor of the fact that God was not mistaken when he created human world. This is the absolute archetype of man's prayer to God and the musical archetype of liturgy.

Title page of Bach's autograph with the title Missa

The beginning of the 18th century is Baroque, and Baroque is primarily a melody. But Bach is not a melodist, he is a polyphonist. Schweitzer even believed that he had problems with melody. What was so easy for Italians was difficult for him. But is this the main thing? The Italians may have a wonderful melody, but it is rather empty. So what if everyone likes Albinoni’s “Adagio,” for example, or Marcello’s oboe concerto? (However, the well-known adagio is a later reworking). Bach also liked a lot: he boldly, without hesitation, took someone else’s work, was inspired by it, and then it turned out to be completely German, very intellectual music.

Hence, by the way, many pseudo-Bach scores. It happened that he liked some works, and he rewrote them. After all, he was a musical director, which means he had to perform not only his own, while his own works were often written not by his hand: he did not have time to write down, for example, a cantata composed for the next Sunday service, and harnessed the whole family: his wife wrote, the children wrote...

Bach's baroque is high baroque, it is sculptural, relief of music. For Bach, a melody is always a symbol. All her movements - up and down - are very significant. In this music you always imagine a certain picture: long falling and rising lines, movement, soaring - all this is so vivid that sometimes it seems as if you are actually seeing it. And if you also look at the score, then these rises in notes are simply completely obvious. Bach's music is a real sound recording, and sometimes a crossword puzzle, since behind the general polyphony of voices, some lines, nuances, strokes cannot be shown by any performer - they remain known only to the conductor, who sees the score, and to God.

Bach. Autograph of the first sheet of “Credo”

In fact, Bach had no followers; a certain tradition ended with him. His sons, who already composed in the manner of early classicism, temporarily eclipsed their father in popularity. If you asked about Bach in the time of Haydn and Mozart, you would first of all think about Carl Philipp Emmanuel or Johann Christian, but hardly about Johann Sebastian. Only later was the great Bach rediscovered by Mendelssohn and the circle of romantics. And although, of course, we must thank them for this, it was their unique understanding of his music that laid the foundation for its not entirely adequate performance. They heard it in their own way, very romantically.

The great Mozart is perhaps the only composer of the second half of the XVIII century was able to truly understand Bach. The fact that Mozart knew and appreciated the music of Bach is beyond doubt. He even used it in his later works: in particular, he made transcriptions of several Bach preludes and fugues.

Yes, Bach and Mozart are often contrasted. This is a very subtle matter. These two people were, of course, musical spirit seers; there are no others like them in the foreseeable time. But Mozart, as I see it, did not pass his musical revelations through the diet. He, as a medium, listened to music from the sky and wrote it down. He himself, perhaps, was sometimes frightened by it, did not understand it, and even choked on it, as Forman wonderfully shows in the film “Amadeus.” The main thing is to write it down as soon as possible... With Bach it’s completely different.

Bach is a conscious prayer that penetrates his entire being. His music is inspired, sometimes even ecstatic, but it is also filtered through the intellect. There is an element of gnosis in it. Bach lives every note and moves from each note to the next note - you can feel it. Even in secular works you hear all the polyphony, multi-layeredness of its musical fabric. When the performance is correct, you feel such tension and density of the structure that it is simply impossible to add a single note to it! None of his contemporaries have this. But at the same time, all this merges into perfect harmony and is perceived even in a Baroque graceful way. How this happens is unclear. It's a miracle.

Bach was generally an esthete. He had a keen sense of the specifics of each instrument. But he wrote some things without any indication of the instrument at all, so to speak, for some abstract instrument. Maybe you should just look at such scores and perform them within yourself? "The Art of Fugue", for example. This is already a kind of mathematics, the “philosophy of the name” of Alexei Losev. Bach did not finish this work, but maybe the music simply went into some “fourth dimension”, into some transcendental worlds of musical abstractions and eidos?

Monument to Bach in Leipzig

Bach is heard quite often in cinema. You can recall, say, Tarkovsky or von Trier. Why? Maybe because Bach is a guide to the world of faith. From my own biography it is very clear why this is so. Bach was my first love, it was Bach who was one of those who led me to the Church and to God. As you understand, we're talking about about the 70s, and, except for vague memories of the religiosity of my great-aunt, who went to church and prayed at night, I did not see any inspiring examples near me. But Bach’s music itself is such that if you are imbued with it, it is impossible to remain an atheist. In a typical Soviet era, in the era of official atheism, people, quite naturally, yearned for God. But Bach could not be banned. After all, this is a musical Everest, and it is impossible to get around it. But this Everest talked about God all the time. And no matter how Soviet musicologists tried to get around this trouble, nothing could be done about it.

I graduated from MEPhI, department of theoretical physics. This is my only thing higher education. Why do I need Bach, a “physicist of the 21st century”? Because everyone always needs Bach - and the physicist of the 21st century, just like the lyricist of the 25th century. Everyone needs Bach's music, just as everyone needs to read the Holy Scriptures, just as everyone needs faith in Christ. The same is true of Bach's music.

These sayings can be used in many ways: posted in the classroom, read to students. You can invite students to listen to the statement and try to retell it in their own way, explaining how they understand the idea expressed. This work engages middle-aged students and generates fruitful discussion.

“Music is sounds, but music is also a whole mass of feelings that are revealed in these sounds for sensitive people.” A. Lunacharsky

“Music is a revelation higher than wisdom.” R. Rolland

“Music is a subject that gives a person pleasure and pleasure.” Y.A. Komensky

“Music is dear to us because it is the deepest expression of the soul, the harmonious echo of its joys and sorrows.” R. Rolland

“Music is the highest of the arts.” Goethe

“...music, when it is perfect, undoubtedly gives the brightest happiness.” Stendhal

“I would wish with all the strength of my soul that my music would bring help and comfort to people.” P.I.Tchaikovsky

“I don't know if there is a single great musician who could be said to be obsolete. The simplest song, coming from the depths of thousands of years, is alive.” A.V.Lunacharsky

“Art is a heart that can think.” C. Gounod

“The poets tell us
what is the music of Orpheus
Trees, rocks, rivers enchanted.
Everything that is insensitive, harsh, stormy -
Always, at least for a moment, music softens.” W.Shakespeare

“Music is the same as a sigh that suddenly escapes from the heart. You feel a lot in it, but it’s not clear to your mind.” S.F. Durov

“Music is a universal language. It exists for everyone - for the poor and the rich, the unhappy and the happy.” L.A. Stokowski

“Music encourages us to think eloquently.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Art is, first of all, skill, the ability to create things that are perfect in form.” I.F. Stravinsky

“Music is a powerful source of thought.” V.A. Sukhomlinsky

“Music, like any art, conveys the thoughts of the one who created it, the thoughts and feelings of those whom it depicts.”

“The primary source of music is not only the world around us, but also man himself, his spiritual world, thinking and speech.” V.A. Sukhomlinsky

“There are no kinds of music except two – good and bad.” J.Bizet

“What is music if not sounds that change and move through time.” L. Bernstein

“Music is the arithmetic of sounds, just as optics is the geometry of light.” C.Debussy

“What a vast, rich world art is if the target is a person.” M.P. Mussorgsky

“The cardinal advantage of my life has always been the search for an original, my own musical language. I hate imitations, I hate hackneyed tricks.” S.S. Prokofiev

“I experienced the first moments of inspiration in my life while singing in the choir.” R.Shchedrin

“I cannot stand the tragic atmosphere of modern times. I want to create something fun. This is my need.” Strauss

“Only by comprehending the form can one comprehend the spirit.” R. Schumann

“With all the depths of my soul, I hate the one-sidedness that makes many people think that only what they do is the best.” F.Schubert

“We should call it not a stream, but a sea!” L.Beethoven

“Work, - even if your things were not played, not published, did not meet with sympathy, believe - they will make an honorable path for themselves; you have enormous and original talent.” F. Liszt (about Borodin)

“Music is my soul.” M.I.Glinka

“Grieg’s sincere, pure and bright music is designed to awaken “good feelings” in people. A.S. Pushkin

“I mean the people as great personality" M.P. Mussorgsky

“Scriabin teaches not to be afraid of suffering, not to be afraid of death, but to believe in the victorious life of the spirit.” A.V.Lunacharsky

“I loved everything I did in this moment, and with each new thing I feel like I’ve finally found my way and I’m just now starting to compose.” I.F. Stravinsky

“Hats off, gentlemen, before you is a genius!” R. Schumann (about Chopin)

“Pure, generous, kind, compassionate, he was filled with one feeling, the noblest of earthly feelings - love for his homeland.” F. Liszt (about Chopin)

“Chopin is the bard, the rhapsode, the spirit, the soul of the piano.” A. Rubinstein

“Schubert had the rare ability to “feel and convey the joys and sorrows of life, as most people feel and would like to convey them if they had Schubert’s talent.” B.V. Asafiev

Bach is dear to me...
Well, how can I tell you,
It’s not that there is no music today,
But such a pure crystal
Grace has not yet shown us.
What a balance of passions,
What an all-encompassing conscience,
What an amazing story
About my soul thrown into the centuries! N. Ushakov

They say I'm as old as the ancient rivers
That time is running out of my hands forever.
Yes, a lot of it was leaked to no avail, I know.
But, devil, let it be so! May the losses be great
Damn it, my cantatas also exist.
And it’s not my time - but I’ll finish him off. K.I.Galchinsky

“You, Mozart, are God”
...What depth!
What courage, and what harmony!
You, Mozart, are God, and you don’t know it yourself,
I know I am! A.S. Pushkin

... Like a certain cherub,
He brought us several heavenly songs,
So that, outraged by wingless desire
In us, the children of the dust, will fly away later.