Art Quote by Michael Portillo

Wagner exploited all forms of expression at a composer's disposal - harmony, dynamics, orchestration - to the extreme. His music is highly emotional, and…

— Daniel Barenboim

Wagner is the Puccini of music.

— J. B. Morton

I did not care for Wagner. My tastes are more classical. Der Fuhrer had no musical taste and liked Wagner because of the bombastic…

— Hans Frank

Wagner always opens you a second breath, and then you go on, and you are absolutely into his musical world, and you can't stop,…

— Andris Nelsons

Did Wagner really accomplish the first step towards the kitschy 'fetishization' of music that reaches its apogee in classical Hollywood?

— Slavoj Žižek

Richard Wagner, a musician who wrote music which is better than it sounds.

— Richard Wagner

“My father pretended to be reading his letters. He was a dreadful actor. ‘Since when have you liked Wagner?”

— Carlos Ruiz Zafón

I simply love Wagner's music. That actually started very early. He was the first composer I was exposed very much to because my parents…

— Andris Nelsons

Wagner is a composer who has beautiful moments but awful quarter hours.

— Gioachino Rossini

Wagner has some great moments, but a lot of miserable half hours.

— Mark Twain

Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches - he has made music sick.

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Wagner used to read the libretti of his operas to his friends; I am glad I was not there.

— Ralph Vaughan Williams