"There is a wretched unbelief abroad which seems to contain much healing power. It deems such a connection accidental, and sees in it only a lucky conjunction of the different forces in the game of life. It thinks it an accident that the lovers win one another, accidental that they love one another; there are a hundred other women with whom the hero would have been equally happy, and whom he could have loved as deeply. It thinks that there has been many a poet who might have become as immortal as Homer, if this splendid subject had not already been appropriated by him; many a composer who might have made himself as immortal as Mozart, had the opportunity offered. … The accidental has but one factor; it is accidental that Homer found in the Trojan War the most distinguished epic subject conceivable. The fortunate has two factors: it is fortunate that the most distinguished epic subject fell to the lot of Homer; here the accent falls as much on Homer as on the material. It is this profound harmony which reverberates through every work of art we call classic. And so it is with Mozart; it is fortunate that the subject, which is perhaps the only strictly musical subject, in the deeper sense, that life affords, fell to — Mozart."

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Music See all quotes by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart →

React to this quote

More by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

“He brought to the classical symphony not only depths of expression but the idea that the musical phrase is inextricably bound up with the particular colouration of the instrument that plays it.”

“Lengthy immersion in the works of other composers can tire. The music of Mozart does not tire, and this is one of its miracles.”

“Melody is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpointists to hack post-horses; therefore be advised, let well alone and remember the old Italian proverb: Chi sa più, meno sa—Who knows most, knows least.”

“Pascal and Felix Mendelssohn were prodigiously precocious. But when each died before reaching age forty, each was physiologically an old man. Not so with Mozart – from him could have been extrapolated as much again in the future as had generously erupted in the past.”

“Livepictures from Mozart Birthhous in Salzburg”

“As I love Mannheim, Mannheim loves me.”

Resonant Thoughts

"The excursus upon the origin of Odysseus’ scar is not basically different from the many passages in which a newly introduced character, or even a newly appearing object or implement, though it be in t…"

— Erich Auerbach

Literature1892–1957

#love

"When I meet people who say, "Oh, there's no hope, Peter, look at the things that are going wrong, and those stupid people in Bosnia, there are going to be things like that all around the world, power-…"

— Pete Seeger

Music1919–2014

#peace

"In the first stage, that of jubilatio, a person becomes intensely aware of the dear signs of his love that god has marvelously given us in the heavens and on earth, how marvelously much good he has do…"

— Johannes Tauler

Literature1300–1361

#life

"When Hobbes referred to the dire state of human beings in having ‘nasty, brutish and short’ lives, he also pointed, in the same sentence, to the disturbing adversity of being ‘solitary’. Escape from i…"

— Amartya Sen

Economics1933

#power