Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Quotes

"The orchestra was large and very good, but because they had become used to playing for a mediocre conductor, they were unaccustomed to observing nuances, such that to obtain both P and PP from them was remarkably difficult"

"How nice it is to be able to verify with one's own eyes the success of our country's literature in France. All the shop-windows here flaunt translations of Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Pisemsky, and Goncharov"

"It turns out that in America I am ten times more renowned than in Europe. At first when people told me this I thought it was an exaggeration. But now I see that it is the truth. Here I am a ‘big shot’! Isn’t that curious?"

"In an artist absolute truth is to be found not in a banal, matter-of-fact sense, but in a higher one which opens up to us unknown horizons, unattainable spheres where only music is capable of penetrating"

"Everyone here is crazy over the Andante, and when I played it with my brother as a pianoforte duet, one girl fainted away. To make the fair sex faint is the highest triumph to which any composer can attain"

"Have you read that poor Lishin died? In my opinion, he was completely mediocre, and his musical activity was very unsympathetic to me; but, my God, what I feel sorry for when a young man dies!"

"Perhaps never in my life has my composer's pride been so flattered and moved as when L. N. Tolstoy, sitting beside me and listening to the Andante from my First Quartet, burst into tears"

"I may have to linger for a few days in Paris, because I've been invited to conduct at a grand concert in aid of the newly-established artists' mutual benefit society" (6th March 1888)

"In Geneva I bought the pianoforte arrangements of several Mozart and Beethoven quartets, and I play one every evening. You have no idea how I enjoy this, and how it refreshes me"

"I lost my temper, spat upon the book, tore it to pieces, stamped upon it, and wound up by throwing it out of the window. From that moment I cannot bear the mention of Victor Hugo"

"Just as I was starting on my journey the idea came to me for a new symphony, this time with a program, but a program which will remain an enigma to all— let them guess it who can"

"Young people are rebelling, and the atmosphere in Russia really and truly is very dismal. However, all this does not prevent me from loving Russia with a strange sort of love"

"Fate... hangs over our heads like the sword of Damocles and inexorably distills a slow and deadly venom. One must bend to it and abandon oneself to boundless despair"

"The conductor here is not some second-rate fellow, but positively a genius, and he is burning with eagerness to conduct the first performance of Onegin" (about Gustav Mahler)

"Big articles are written about me in the newspapers, they scold a lot, but they treat me with much more respect, attention and interest than ours" (about the German critics)

"I am convinced that ten years hence Carmen will be the most popular opera in the world. But no one is a prophet in his own land. In Paris Carmen has had no real success"

"I am re-reading Tolstoy with indescribable pleasure. The more I dislike him as a thinker and preacher, the more and more I bow before his mighty genius as a writer"

"Only now, especially after the tale of my marriage, have I finally begun to understand that there is nothing more fruitless than not wanting to be that which I am by nature"

"I am very well pleased with my musical work. As regards the literary side of it, I believe it will cost me some days of my life. I cannot describe how it exhausts me"

"There will be much innovation of form in this symphony— and incidentally, the finale will not be a noisy allegro but, on the contrary, a long drawn-out adagio"

"Brahms, as a musical personality, is antipathetic to me. I cannot abide him. Whatever he does—I remain unmoved and cold. It is a purely instinctive feeling"

"You can't imagine what bliss I feel, being convinced that my time is not yet passed and I can still work. Perhaps, of course, I'm mistaken, but I don't think so"

"The society of another fellow-creature is only pleasant when a long-standing intimacy, or common interests, make it possible to dispense with all effort"

"Even I, when I am writing an opera, feel somehow constrained and not free, and then it really does seem to me that I shall never write an opera again"

"Amazing people, these Americans! Compared with Paris, where at every approach, in every stranger’s kindness, one feels an attempt at exploitation"

"I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed as a genius"

"He was devoid of self-satisfaction and boastfulness; he seems hardly to have been conscious of the greatness of his genius" (about Mozart)

"Fame! What contradictory sentiments the word awakes in me! On the one hand I desire and strive for it; on the other I detest it"

"I feel that as long as I can hold a pen in my hand I will nevertheless write more operas than symphonies or string quartets"

"I do not intend to indulge in inaction at all - I will only devote the rest of my strength to the pursuit of more useful tasks"

"To squeeze music out of one’s brain every day for ten weeks is indeed an exhausting process. Now I can breathe freely"

"I believe Oniegin and one or two of my instrumental works are far more closely allied to my individual temperament"

"What I need is to believe in myself again - for my faith has been greatly undermined; it seems to me my role is over"

"You are one of those writers who cause us to love not only their works but also themselves" (about Leo Tolstoy)

"Tolstoy is a somewhat paradoxical man, though certainly frank, kind, and in his way even sensitive to music"

"The thought that this paper is going to be in your hands fills me with joy and brings tears to my eyes"

"The greatest of all writers and artists ever to have existed anywhere" (describing Leo Tolstoy)

"Generally speaking, the germ of a future composition comes suddenly and unexpectedly"

"My melancholy has passed, but nevertheless I still cannot wait for this journey to end"

"I would give anything for my Maid of Orleans to turn out as good as Le Roi de Lahore"

"After the last notes of Gotterdammerung I felt as though I had been let out of prison"

"My rendezvous had been arranged for this evening. A truly bitter-sweet dilemma!"

"How many penholders I gnaw to pieces before a few lines grow perfect"

"I shall strive for mastery until my last breath, without ever attaining it"

"During my trip, while composing in my mind, I frequently shed tears"

"Doesn't a true philosopher know only that he knows nothing?"

"Truly there would be reason to go mad were it not for music"

"I am a Russian, Russian, Russian, to the marrow of my bones"

"Raphael is still my favourite-the Mozart of painters"

"An author never judges his own works with justice"