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.

It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table.

My things really are written with an appalling lack of practicality!

Those are miracles that no merely human brain can work. The artist is merely the sound conduct of a Force that dictates to him what he should do.

If we cannot write with the beauty of Mozart, let us at least try to write with his purity.

It is not hard to compose but it is wonderfully hard to let the superfluous notes fall under the table. . . So many melodies fly about, one must be careful not to tread on them.

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.