Giuseppe Verdi
Greatest Italian opera composer
Most quoted
"I adore art... when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds, and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my inspiration are so great that I have to sing them out loud."
— from Letter, 1871
"I adore art... when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear."
— from Letter to Countess Maffei, 1875
"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."
— from Letter to Arrivabene, 1871
All quotes by Giuseppe Verdi (398)
The theater is meant to be full, not empty.
When I am not working, I am not living.
I have a head full of ideas, but no time to write them down.
Let us leave the beautiful to the lazy, and seek instead the true.
I have always demanded a lot from my librettists, and I have been very lucky with them.
The success of the future lies in the hands of the past.
I am not a man of letters, I am a man of music.
A great singer is as rare as a great composer.
In art as in love, instinct is enough.
I detest everything that smacks of the conventional and the formula.
The most beautiful and perfect masterpiece of heaven is man.
My notes are good only when they are sung as I conceived them.
I have never written a note I did not feel.
Time is the best judge.
I am Italian above all.
An opera without melody is like a body without a soul.
Let the word be the master of the music, not its slave.
I have finished my career. I have done my duty.
Contemporaries of Giuseppe Verdi
Other Musics born within 50 years of Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901).