I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose — there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?
Clara SchumannRead
Composing gives me great pleasure... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one wins hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound.
Interpretation
The joy of creation in music allows one to escape from reality and experience deep fulfillment.
Clara Schumann expresses the profound pleasure and fulfillment that comes from composing music. She highlights the idea that through the act of creation, one can experience a transcendent state of self-forgetfulness, immersing oneself in the beauty of sound and artistry, which provides a unique joy that surpasses other experiences.
In practice
This quote could be shared at a music composition workshop to inspire budding composers.
I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose — there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?
My health may be better preserved if I exert myself less, but in the end doesn't each person give his life for his calling?
There is nothing greater than the joy of composing something oneself and then listening to it.
I cannot give a single concert at which I do not play one piece after the other in an agony of terror because my memory threatens to fail me. This fear torments me for days beforehand.
I took to writing at an early age to escape from meaninglessness, uselessness, unimportance, insignificance, poverty, enslavement, ill health, despair, madness, and all manner of other unattractive, natural and inevitable things.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver, little breezes dusk and shiver, thro' the wave that runs forever by the island in the river, flowing down to Camelot. Four gray walls and four gray towers, overlook a space of flowers, and the silent isle imbowers, the Lady of Shalott.
That's what happens with writing. Ingredients bubble and cook. Material becomes substance.
If they say they don't like the way I play Beethoven, then I can swallow that, and maybe they're right. But if they don't like what I've written, then it's about me.
In fact, most artists want to make things a bit more difficult for themselves as they go along, to challenge themselves.
If I were a doctor, I would prescribe that you addict yourself deeply and irrevocably to music and never, ever seek cure outside of more music. It really is the best drug available.
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