No pain, no gain.
Hard work is a mustIf you want to succeed
In any walk of life.Only from aspiration and determination
We can achieve
Perfection and satisfaction.```
The immortal utterance of music-sovereign Bach runs:> I was obliged to work hard.
> Whoever is equally industrious will succeed just as well.When the ignorance-prince
Wants to instruct and guide the world,Specially the music-world,
He speaks through a village organist:"This can only be the devil or Bach himself!"
``````
It goes without sayingThat I am no match for Bach.
In the music-worldHe is the Himalayas
And I am the anthill.But I am extremely proud of myself
For having the capacityTo follow devotedly in his footsteps.
```> It would be nice to hear someone accidentally whistle something of mine, somewhere, just once."
> — Leonard Bernstein```
A soulful wishCannot remain unanswered.
Divinity's soul and humanity's heartGet tremendous satisfaction
By fulfilling a charming, lovingAnd soulful wish.
You have quenched the thirst
Of the music-world.The colossal pride of the music-world
In you is superbly genuine. ```You as the seed,
You as the plant,You as a huge tree
With an inimitable varietyOf flowers and fruits
Are indeed the grandeur-expressionOf Infinity's power-fragrance.
```This world of ours and its heart are absolutely at one with the admirer-mourner-woman at your funeral:
> They are burying the general of the musicians.In Heaven we are.
On earth we become.In the inner world we are.
In the outer world we become.Indeed, there is an immeasurable gulf
Between "we are" and "we become."Unfortunately, no human being
Either can remainOr is destined to remain forever
At the Heights transcendental.```
O critic in Eduard Hanslick, we are not ready to hear from you what you have to say: > The first of Beethoven's compositions are his music; in his last compositions Beethoven makes music.> Here lie rich treasure and still fairer hopes.
> Epitaph on Schubert's tombstone```
You are the embodimentOf humanity's tearful heart-cry
And Divinity's powerful soul-smile.True, hope-bird tries to fly
Beyond reality's horizon.Again, reality's contribution
Can be unimaginably fruitful.Death snatched your body
At a most deplorably early age of 31.But Immortality kept your soul
Permanently here on earthTo be treasured eternally by earth.
```> 'My peace is gone, my heart is sore, I shall find it never and nevermore,' I may well sing every day now, for each night, on retiring to bed, I hope I may not wake again, and each morning but recalls yesterday's grief.
Indeed, your suffering-life is the world's tragedy-experience.> It sometimes seems to me as if I did not belong to this world at all.
Down the sweep of centuries it has been an obvious fact that a great man is destined to be misunderstood. This unalterable fact is indeed hard reality. But when the contemporaries are buried in oblivion, immortal achievements of the immortal world figures adorn the four corners of the globe throughout the length and breadth of the world.
Schubert, in the firmament of heart-music, you are beauty's power and power's silence.> My Lord, I should be sorry if I only entertained them; I wished to make them better.
> — George Frederic HandelThe musicians who have the capacity to entertain the audience are indeed great. But the musicians who have the capacity to inspire and enlighten the audience are infinitely greater and better.
As the vital thrill is apt to lower the consciousness of human beings, even so the psychic touch can heighten the consciousness of the audience. The musicians who want to make a better world with their soul-stirring music are indeed the unparalleled pride of the Mother-Earth.On composing the Hallelujah Chorus, Handel tells us: "Whether I was in my body or out of my body as I wrote it, I know not. God knows."
God the Doer chooses His choicest instrument to reveal Him and manifest Him on earth in an unprecedented manner.> I have been told that Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
> — Mark Twain> Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches — he has made music sick....Wagner's art is diseased.
> — Friedrich Nietzsche
> Happily for Wagner, he is endowed with a temper so insolent that criticism cannot touch his heart-even admitting that he has heart, which I doubt.
> — Georges BizetAgain, in a letter to Liszt he declares, "Whatever my passions demand of me, I become for the time being — musician, poet, director, author, lecturer or anything else."
Indeed, what Wagner writes is sublimely instructive and unmistakably inspiring.About Brahms, George Bernard Shaw said, "His Requiem is patiently borne only by the corpse."
Another man added, "Too much beer and beard."One man states, "He is the truest artist I have ever met."
Robert Schumann concisely concludes, "Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!"
But then, Oscar Wilde remarks, "After playing Chopin, I feel as if I had been weeping over sins that I had never committed and mourning over tragedies that were not my own."
Another man comments, "Compared with Berlioz, Chopin was a morbidly sentimental flea by the side of a roaring lion."
My heart soulfully and readily agrees with Miss Gladkowska: "Remember! Never forget that we in Poland love you....In foreign lands they may appreciate and reward you better, but they cannot love you more."Clara Schumann, for example, tersely states: "A smasher of pianos."
Felix Mendelssohn adds: "He performed works by Beethoven, Bach, Handel and Weber in such a pitiably imperfect style, so uncleanly, so ignorantly, that I could have listened to many a middling pianist with more pleasure."
Am I not lucky that I will not dare to play Bach, Beethoven and Handel? I would have played them infinitely worse and infinitely more destructively. Who knows, perhaps I would have rightly deserved the same.
Again, who in his right mind can dare to ignore the high appreciation that you have received?
Robert Schumann comments: "He must be heard — and also seen; for if he played behind the scenes, a great deal of the poetry of his playing would be lost."> I wish to write down my musical dreams in a spirit of utter self-detachment.
> — Claude Debussy Self-detachment is of supreme importance. When we have self-detachment, we can enter into the world of self-transcendence. Self-transcendence at once embodies perfect perfection and complete satisfaction.> Music is not illusion, but revelation.
> — Peter Ilyicb Tchaikovsky One does not have to be a musician of the highest order in order to see eye-to-eye with you. Any man, as long as he is a music-lover, knows and feels that the supreme utterance by the supreme musician in you is absolutely true.> I should not like to be understood by everybody.
> — Robert Schumann```
The philosopher in youIs divinely great.
The God-lover in youIs supremely good.
```The supreme musician in Rossini has practically the same message:
> Delight must be the basis and aim of this art.> Friends often flatter me that I have some genius, but he [Mozart] stands far above me.
Your soulful humility is proudly blessed by the highest Heights. At a performance of The Creation, you affirm: "Not from me — it came from above."From:Sri Chinmoy,Music: ecstasy's heart-hunger, Agni Press, 1994
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