The Prince stood beside the timpanist to count his rests for him and see that he came in in the right place. I suppressed all the trumpet passages wh… - Hector Berlioz

Cette face de l’instrumentation est exactement, en musique, ce que le coloris est en peinture.

The author of The Prophet not only has the good luck to have talent, he has also the talent to have good luck.

A singer who is able to sing even sixteen measures of good music in a natural and engaging way, effortlessly and in tune, without distending the phrase, without exaggerating accents to the point of caricature, without platitude, affectation, or coyness, without making grammatical mistakes, without illicit slurs, without hiatus or hiccup, without making insolent changes in the text, without barks or bleats, without sour notes, without crippling the rhythm, without absurd ornaments and nauseating appoggiaturas – in short, a singer able to sing these measures simply and exactly as the composer wrote them – is a rare, very rare, exceedingly rare bird.