Musical ideas sprang to my mind like a flight of butterflies, and all I had to do was to stretch out my hand to catch them
Bach is a colossus of Rhodes, beneath whom all musicians pass and will continue to pass. Mozart is the most beautiful, Rossini the most brilliant, but Bach is the most comprehensive: he has said all there is to say.
If all the music written since Bach's time should be lost, it could be reconstructed on the foundation which Bach laid.
Before Mozart, all ambition turns to despair.
Who has reached the extreme limits of scale with the same infallible precision, equally guarded against the false refinement of artificial elegance and the roughness of spurious force? Who has better known how to breathe anguish and dread into the purest and most exquisite forms?
My opinion changes rapidly - one minute I can think it is very good and the next time I look at it, I see all the flaws and weaknesses therein.
This severe, ascetic music, calm and horizontal as the line of the ocean, monotonous by virtue of its serenity, anti-sensuous, and yet so intense in its contemplativeness that it verges sometimes on ecstasy.
Mozart, prodigal heaven gave thee everything, grace and strength, abundance and moderation, perfect equilibrium.
