Voices of the Muses

“But you will be so if you can almost foresee in a new piece what is to follow, or remember it in an old one,--in a word, if you have not only music in your fingers, but also in your head and heart.”

“Be a doctor! Learn to dissect! Help in horrible operations! Bury myself in the hideous realities of hospitals, wounds, and death, when I might tread the clouds with the immortals!--when music and poetry wooed me with open arms and divine songs.”

“Fortunately I know all the airs thoroughly by heart, so I can see and hear them in my own thoughts at home.”

“I am in love with the image of Tatiana, I am under the spell of Poushkin's verse, and I am drawn to compose the music as it were by some irresistible attraction. I am lost in the composition of the opera.”

“If, while at the piano, you attempt to form little melodies, that is very well; but if they come into your mind of themselves, when you are not practising, you may be still more pleased; for the internal organ of music is then roused in you. The fingers must do what the head desires; not the contrary.”

“As far as the music is concerned I am exploring a virgin Brazilian forest and great are the treasures I hope to find.”

“Acquire an early knowledge of the art of conducting music. Observe often the best conductors, and conduct along with them in your mind. This will give you clearness of perception and make you accurate.”

“And, during those months, what a burning, exhilarating life I led! Ah! the joy of floating on the halcyon sea of poetry; wafted onward by the sweet soft breeze of imagination; warmed by the rays of that golden sun of love unveiled by Shakespeare! I felt within me the god-like strength to win my way to that blessed hidden isle, where the temple of pure art raises its soaring columns to the sky.”

“That was the day of great enthusiasms, of rich musical passions, of beautiful dreams, of ineffable, infinite joys.”