Undoubtedly [Beethoven's] music often verges on kitsch

For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo.

— Cornel West

I believe so, but at first he must know. He must know in which spirit Beethoven has composed this piece. He must try to…

— Kurt Masur

And now, in honour of the 150th anniversary of Beethoven's death, I would like to play 'Clear the Saloon', er, 'Clair de Lune', by…

— Victor Borge

“That Beethoven was capable of producing the ultimate musical definition of heroism in this context is itself extraordinary, for he was able to evoke…

— Maynard Solomon

“He had said it bravely, and that is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things.”

— E.M. Forster

The point of recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony unleashes one of the most horrifyingly violent episodes in the history of…

— Susan McClary

“You'll have a good, secure life when being alive means more to you than security, love more than money, your freedom more than public…

— Wilhelm Reich

I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget this concert given before an audience of the dead and dying? Even today, when I…

— Elie Wiesel

“Did Beethoven create his symphonies for his glorification? I don't believe it. I believe he created them because the music in his soul demanded…

— W. Somerset Maugham

“On behalf of all that is good and melodic, Ludwig van Beethoven, I apologize.”

— Sarah Strohmeyer

Beethoven can't really be great because his picture isn't on a bubble gum card.

— Charles M. Schulz

“I hope Ludwig van Beethoven gets his cut, Langdon thought, fairly certain that the original inventor of bone conduction technology was the eighteenth-century composer…

— Dan Brown

“A deaf composer's like a cook who's lost his sense of taste. A frog that's lost its webbed feet. A truck driver with his…

— Haruki Murakami

Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that.

— Esa-Pekka Salonen

I think there are very few people that I would give the title of genius to, really, but Beethoven unquestionably is one of them.

— Stephen Hough