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The Prelude to Tristan and Isolde reminds me of the old Italian painting of a martyr whose intestines are slowly unwound from his body on a reel.

— Eduard Hanslick

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More quotes by Eduard Hanslick

Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound.

You cannot imagine the wild enthusiasm that these two men created in Vienna. Newspapers went into raptures over each new waltz, and innumerable articles appeared about Lanner and Strauss.

That the sweetly intoxicating three-four rhythm which took hold of hand & foot, necessarily eclipsed great & serious music & made the audience unfit for any intellectual effort goes without saying.

(Referring to the music of Anton Bruckner) "Nightmarish hangover style" (traumverwirrten Katzenjammerstil)

[Music is] a language which we speak and understand but cannot translate

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Eduard Hanslick (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.