You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room - proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.

If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.

The melody is generally what the piece is all about.

You may feel depressed, but it can't be so depressing that you can't move. No, I would say that people create in moments when they are elated about expressing their depression!

The inspired moment may sometimes be described as a kind of hallucinatory state of mind: one half of the personality emotes and dictates while the other half listens and notates. The half that listens has better look the other way, had better simulate a half attention only, for the half that dictates is easily disgruntled and avenges itself for too close inspection by fading entirely away.

Someone once asked me... whether I waited for inspiration. My answer was: "Every day!"

Mozart tapped the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breathtaking rightness.