Wolfgang Hildesheimer Quotes

I haven't heard anything so great for a long time; Beethoven snaps his fingers at the whole world.

I admire Johann Strauss a lot. I believe he was a genius of his time.

Mozart, Beethoven - how can you not want to share them with everyone and anyone? This stuff is of as great importance as the food we eat and the air we breathe.

Much as my Boomer friends will hate me for saying this, Kanye West is the New Dylan. Not only do Kanye's best lyrics match Dylan's prescience, highly inventive word-play and genius for storytelling, his indefatigable cockiness eerily channels Muhammad Ali.

I am convinced that 100 years from now, people will talk about Elliott Carter as one of the most important figures in the second half of 20th-century music.

One seldom expects the country's president to adequately note the passing of a rocker, but Jimmy Carter's assessment of Elvis Presley's appeal - 'energy, rebelliousness and good humor' - is remarkably close to the mark.

Contemporary art will never achieve the audience of football, pop music, or television, so I think we should stop comparing its possible area of influence to that of big mass-media events.

All composers who came after were influenced by Beethoven, even during his lifetime, both by his personality and by his music. He was a father figure for generations.

Elvis may have been my first hero, but you couldn't relate to him.

Bob Dylan is like an alien on this earth, and I love him! I cried when I saw him play live because I was so close to him.

It's hard to say what iconically will hit, resonate and stay with people.

And, it seems like a whole new generation of kids have discovered his genius and are bringing him to life again. I hope that wherever Michael is right now he is smiling about this. Yes, Michael Jackson was a human being but he was a king. Long live the king.

There are no Jerry Garcias coming down the pike, anymore than there is a Jimi Hendrix or Bob Marley. They are all at the same level - the highest level that you strive to get to as a musician. Me and my friends - we'll all be long dead, people will still be trying to dig into what Jerry Garcia did.

When I was a kid I used to want to be a Beethoven or something. That was my dream.

Mozart, who was buried in a pauper’s grave, was one of the greatest successes we know of, a man who in his early thirties had poured out his inexhaustible gift of music, leaving the world richer because he had passed that way. To leave the world richer—that is the ultimate success.

What the soul is to the body, so is the artist to his people.

I don't think anyone knows why people like [Twilight]. I don't think even the fans know why they connect with it the way they do. It's a visceral thing.

Michael Jackson doesn't really belong on this planet. He's the most important figure in the history of music. He'll be remembered far longer than George Bush will. 200 years from now, people will be talking about Michael Jackson, and no one's going to mention George Bush.

The incomparable Michael Jackson has made a bigger impact on music than any other artist in the history of music. He was magic. He was what we all strive to be. He will always be the King of Pop! Life is not about how many breaths you take, but about how many moments in life that take your breath away. For anyone who has ever seen, felt or heard his art, we are all honored to have been alive in this generation to experience the magic of Michael Jackson. I love you, Michael.

I have always reckoned myself among the greatest admirers of Mozart, and shall do so till the day of my death.

All art at some time and in some manner becomes mass entertainment, and if it does not it dies and is forgotten.

When Bach died some of his children sold his scores to the butcher they had decided the paper was more useful for wrapping meat. In a small village in Germany a father brought home a limp goose wrapped in paper that was covered with strange and beautiful symbols.

Usually the intention of the artistic effect is too sophisticated for most people to understand, sort of like a joke that they don't get so they don't think it's funny.

I love going to plays. There's a subconscious side to it, obviously-some people like to be spanked for XYZ psychological reasons, and I like to go to plays, and I can't entirely explain why.

My paintings seem to make the strongest impression on people who are, well, who are crazy.