Giuseppe Verdi Quotations

The artist must yield himself to his own inspiration... I should compose with utter confidence a subject that set my musical blood going, even though it were condemned by all other artists as anti-musical.

I order that my funeral ceremonies be extremely modest, and that they take place at dawn or at the evening Ave Maria, without song or music.

Oh, you happy sons of the North who have been reared at the bosom of Bach, how I envy you!

I deny that either singers or conductors can create or work creatively - this, as I have always said, is a conception that leads to the abyss.

The artist must yield himself to his own inspiraton, and if he has a true talent, no one knows and feels better than he what suits him.

Oh blessed a thousand times the peasant who is born, eats and dies without anybody bothering about his affairs.

Our mistake, you see, was to write interminable large operas, which had to fill an entire evening. And now along comes someone with a one or two-act opera without all that pompous nonsense - that was a happy reform.

Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned. I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music.

Can you imagine what most conductors would do if I wrote one?

In that way I can be quite certain of not making any mistakes,