Vocalist.org archive


<
From:  John Link <johnlink@n...>
John Link <johnlink@n...>
Date:  Sat Sep 22, 2001  4:53 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist] Another Goethe quote [WAS:prince hal becomes Henry V]


I wrote:

><< I recall reading somewhere (I don't know where) that the jazz pianist
>Bill Evans liked to quote a statement of Goethe's along the lines of
>the following: Anyone can be a master who is willing to work within
>his limitations.
>
>Judy (or anyone else that could help), do you have any idea where
>Goethe might have written that? >>

and Judy replied:

>I'm not really anyone's idea of an expert on Goethe, but I am pretty handy
>with a search engine! Here's what I found:
>
>The line "In der Beschraenkung zeigt sich erst der Meister" is from a sonnet
>written by Goethe upon the opening of the new Playhouse in Lauchstaedt on
>the 26th of June, 1802. It was a part of the prologue, Scene 19. This was a
>thought he was wandering around with at the time. In my little Insel Verlag
>_Goethes Gedichte in zeitlicher Folge_, 1.489, it is grouped with another
>sonnet with the same thought. It is often called just Sonett or Natur und
>Kunst. It means: "It is not until limitations are put on him that the
>master really shows himself."

THANK YOU JUDY! I've asked loads of people about the quotation and
until you nobody has had a clue. Although what you found doesn't
express the same thought as the one I recall reading, it is very
close in spirit and for all I know Bill Evans misquoted Goethe. Like
you, I'm pretty good with a search engine but I don't know German.
What would be the titles I should like for in English?

John Link

P.S. I find it interesting that the line "It is not until limitations
are put on him that the master really shows himself" shows up in a
thread started by mike writing about how George W. became President
Bush.

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