I Feel Like A Novice, Just As

Sometimes I Can Only Groan, And Suffer, And Pour Out My Despair At The Piano.

It's A Huge Carthusian Monastery, Stuck Down Between Rocks And Sea, Where You May Imagine Me, Without White Gloves Or Hair Curling, As Pale As Ever, In A Cell With Such Doors As Paris Never Had For Gates. The Cell Is The Shape Of A Tall Coffin, With An Enormous Dusty Vaulting, A Small Window... Bach, My Scrawls And Waste Paper - Silence - You Could Scream - There Would Still Be Silence. Indeed, I Write To You From A Strange Place.

Having Nothing To Do, I Am Correcting The Paris Edition Of Bach; Not Only The Engraver's Mistakes, But Also The Mistakes Hallowed By Those Who Are Supposed To Understand Bach (i Have No Pretensions To Understand Better, But I Do Think That Sometimes I Can Guess).

Among The Numerous Pleasures Of Vienna The Hotel Evenings Are Famous. During Supper Strauss Or Lanner Play Waltzes...after Every Waltz They Get Huge Applause; And If They Play A Quodlibet, Or Jumble Of Opera, Song And Dance, The Hearers Are So Overjoyed That They Don't Know What To Do With Themselves. It Shows The Corrupt Taste Of The Viennese Public.

Bach Is Like An Astronomer Who, With The Help Of Ciphers, Finds The Most Wonderful Stars . . . Beethoven Embraced The Universe With The Power Of His Spirit . . . I Do Not Climb So High. A Long Time Ago I Decided That My Universe Will Be The Soul And Heart Of Man.