When God created Man, he gave him Music as a language different from all other languages. And early man sang his glory in the wilderness; and drew the hearts of kings and moved them from their thrones.
By music minds an equal temper know,
Nor swell too high, nor sink too low.
. . . .
Warriors she fires with animated sounds.
Pours balm into the bleeding lover's wounds.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.
In Haydn's oratorios, the notes present to the imagination not only motions, as, of the snake, the stag, and the elephant, but colors also; as the green grass.
There is a fault common to all singers. When they're among friends and are asked to sing they don't want to, and when they're not asked to sing they never stop.