If that condition of mind and soul, which we call inspiration, lasted long without intermission, no artist could survive it. The strings would break and the instrument be shattered into fragments.
Pyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyWe must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavoring to meet it halfway, we easily become indirect and apathetic.
Pyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyThe creative process is like music which takes root with extraordinary force and rapidity
Pyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyMozart is the highest, the culminating point that beauty has attained in the sphere of music.
Pyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyHow can one express the indefinable sensations that one experiences while writing an instrumental composition that has no definite subject? It is a purely lyrical process. It is a musical confession of the soul, which unburdens itself through sounds just as a lyric poet expresses himself through poetry...As the poet Heine said, 'Where words leave off, music begins.'
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky