Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Felix Mendelssohn, fully Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

German Composer, Conductor, Musician, Organist, Pianist

"Nothing is real but what is felt or believed."

"It's not that music is too imprecise for words, but too precise."

"Art can rise above mere handicraft only by being devoted to the expression of a lofty thought."

"These seem to me so ambiguous, so vague, so easily misunderstood in comparison to genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words. "

"Though everything else may appear shallow and repulsive, even the smallest task in music is so absorbing, and carries us so far away from town, country, earth, and all worldly things, that it is truly a blessed gift of God."

"The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety. "

"Ever since I began to compose, I have remained true to my starting principle: not to write a page because no matter what public, or what pretty girl wanted it to be thus or thus; but to write solely as I myself thought best, and as it gave me pleasure."

"Life and art are not two different things."

"People often complain that music is too ambiguous, that what they should think when they hear it is so unclear, whereas everyone understands words. With me, it is exactly the opposite, and not only with regard to an entire speech but also with individual words."

"This is what I think art is and what I demand of it: that it pull everyone in, that it show one person another's most intimate thoughts and feelings, that it throw open the window of the soul."