Wagner's Music Quotes

I'm sure the atmosphere at Tanglewood and the space there and nature - I think it absolutely fits Wagner's music.

Wagner exploited all forms of expression at a composer's disposal - harmony, dynamics, orchestration - to the extreme. His music is highly emotional, and at the same time Wagner has extraordinary control over the effect he achieves.

I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says.

I have witnessed and greatly enjoyed the first act of everything which Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone away physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera the result has been the next thing to suicide.

Most of the dramatism in Wagner comes from a very close link between the music and the language of the text. So much of the expressivity of Wagner's music dramas comes from the singers' capacity to play with the sound of the language. This kind of thing you can do very well in concert performance.

Wagner always opens you a second breath, and then you go on, and you are absolutely into his musical world, and you can't stop, and you can listen for four hours, five hours, six hours, and then you are like in his mystical hands of his music. He's such a great poet of music.

I simply love Wagner's music. That actually started very early. He was the first composer I was exposed very much to because my parents introduced me to Wagner's music very early.