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In poetry there are two giants, rough Homer and fine Shakespere. In music likewise we have two giants, Beethoven, the thinker, and the superthinker Berlioz.

— Modest Mussorgsky

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More quotes by Modest Mussorgsky

I regard the people as a great being, inspired by a single idea. This is my problem. I strove to solve it in this opera.

My music must be an artistic reproduction of human speech in all its finest shades. That is, the sounds of human speech, as the external manifestations of thought and feeling must, without exaggeration or violence, become true, accurate music.

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The emphasis of study upon a particular aspect of music is in itself ideological because it contains implications about the music's value.

Lucy Green

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

Thomas Carlyle Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)

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.

Eduard Hanslick

Above the pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges.

François Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532)

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