Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.

Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.

I sometimes ponder on variation form and it seems to me it ought to be more restrained, purer.

Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject. Beethoven varies the melody, harmony and rhythms so beautifully.

In him converge all previous streams of tendency, not as into a pool, stagnant, passive, motionless, but as a noble river that received its tributary waters and bearss them onward in larger and statelier volume.

We cling nervously to the melody, but we don't handle it freely, we don't really make anything new out of it, we merely overload it.

Straightaway the ideas flow in upon me, directly from God.