[ This collection is now circulating among the musical circles of
 [ the Internet.  -- Robbie ]

"He'd be better off shoveling snow." -- Richard Strauss on
Arnold Schoenberg.

When told that a soloist would need six fingers to perform his
concerto, Arnold Schoenberg replied, "I can wait."

"I would like to hear Elliot Carter's Fourth String Quartet, if only
to discover what a cranky prostate does to one's polyphony."
-- James Sellars

"Exit in case of Brahms." -- Philip Hale's proposed inscription over
the doors of Boston Symphony Hall

"Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like,
it's always by Villa-Lobos?" -- Igor Stravinsky

"His music used to be original.  Now it's aboriginal."
-- Sir Ernest Newman on Igor Stravinsky

"If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have been
better for music." -- Maurice Ravel on Camille Saint-Saens

"One can't judge Wagner's opera Lohengrin after a first hearing, and I
certainly don't intend hearing it a second time." -- Gioacchino Rossini

"I liked the opera very much.  Everything but the music."
-- Benjamin Britten on Stravinsky's The Rakes Progress

"Her singing reminds me of a cart coming downhill with the brake on."
-- Sir Thomas Beecham on an unidentified soprano in Die Walkyre.