Composition
The true artist has no pride; he unfortunately sees that art has no boundaries. He vaguely feels how distant he is from his goal and though he is perhaps admired by others, he mourns that he has not reached the point where better genius radiates to him like a distant sun.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Beethoven original manuscript [1970 Inter Nationes, Bonn - Bad Godesberg, Ludwig van Beethoven 1770-1970, Printed in Germany, Carl Schünemann Bremen, Layout Heinz Bähr]
Toward the Teaching of Style
by Friedrich Nietzsche
(in Lou Salomé, Nietzsche, Translated and Edited by Siegfried Mandel, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 2001, p77
1
Of prime necessity is life: a style should live.
2
Style should be suited to the specific person with whom you wish to communicate. (The law of mutual relation.)
3
First, one must determine precisely "what-and-what do I wish to say and present." before you may write. Writing must be mimicry.
4
Since the writer lacks many of the speaker's means, he must in general have for his model a very expressive kind of presentation; of necessity, the written copy will appear much paler.
5
The richness of life reveals itself through a richness of gestures. One must learn to feel everything--the length and retarding of sentences, interpunctuations, the choice of words, the pausing, the sequence of arguments--like gestures.
6
Be careful with periods! Only those people who also have long duration of breath while speaking are entitled to periods. With most people, the period is a matter of affectation.
7
Style ought to prove that one believes in an idea; not only thinks it but also feels it.
8
The more abstract a truth which one wishes to teach, the more one must first entice the senses.
9
Strategy on the party of the good writer of prose consists of choosing his means for stepping close to poetry but never stepping into it.
10
It is not good manners or clever to deprive one's reader of the most obvious objections. It is very good manners and very clever to leave it to one's reader alone to pronounce the ultimate quiintessence of our wisdom.
Einojuhani Rautavaara, Symphony No. 8 ("The Journey") on youtube
Einojuhani Rautavaara, Symphony No. 8 ("The Journey") pdf
Glenn Gould - How Mozart Became a Bad Composer ("The Return of the Wizard")
Glenn Gould talks about Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Soviet music