My mind and fingers have worked like the damned. Homer, the Bible, Plato, Locke, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, Beethoven, Bach, Hummel, Mozart, Weber are all around me. I study them. I devour them with fury.
Franz LisztRead
Music embodies feeling without forcing it to contend and combine with thought, as it is forced in most arts and especially in the art of words.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Music expresses emotions directly, unlike other art forms that often require thought and language.
Franz Liszt's quote highlights the unique power of music to convey emotions in a pure and unfiltered way. While other forms of art, particularly literature, often involve a complex interplay of thought and reason, music has the ability to evoke feelings effortlessly, allowing listeners to connect with their emotions without the mediation of language or intellectualization.
Themes
MusicEmotionArtExpressionFeelings
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker discussing the therapeutic effects of music on mental health.
More from Franz Liszt
All quotes βIt is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.
Franz LisztRead
Music is the heart of life." She speaks love; "without it, there is no possible good and with it everything is beautiful.
Franz LisztRead
For the virtuoso, musical works are in fact nothing but tragic and moving materializations of his emotions; he is called upon to make them speak, weep, sing and sigh, to recreate them in accordance with his own consciousness. In this way he, like the composer, is a creator, for he must have within himself those passions that he wishes to bring so intensely to life.
Franz LisztRead
I conclude that the Wagnerian operas which are already in the repertoire, and other masterworks as well, stand in no further need of my services.
Franz LisztRead
Music is never stationary; successive forms and styles are only like so many resting-places - like tents pitched and taken down again on the road to the Ideal.
Franz LisztRead
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