It's Not That Music Is Too Imprecise

People Usually Complain That Music Is So Ambiguous, And What They Are Supposed To Think When They Hear It Is So Unclear, While Words Are Understood By Everyone. But For Me It Is Exactly The Opposite...what The Music I Love Expresses To Me Are Thoughts Not To Indefinite For Words, But Rather Too Definite.

These, Too, Seem To Me So Ambiguous, So Vague, So Easily Misunderstood In Comparison To Genuine Music, Which Fills The Soul With A Thousand Things Better Than Words.

Ever Since I Began To Compose, I Have Remained True To My Starting Principle: Not To Write A Page Because No Matter What Public, Or What Pretty Girl Wanted It To Be Thus Or Thus; But To Write Solely As I Myself Thought Best, And As It Gave Me Pleasure.

I Know Perfectly Well That No Musician Can Make His Thoughts Or His Talents Different To What Heaven Has Made Them; But I Also Know That If Heaven Had Given Him Good Ones, He Must Also Be Able To Develop Them Properly.

And Here We Come To The Vital Distinction Between The Advocacy Of Temperance And The Advocacy Of Prohibition. Temperance And Self-control Are Convertible Terms. Prohibition, Or That Which It Implies, Is The Direct Negation Of The Term Self-control. In Order To Save The Small Percentage Of Men Who Are Too Weak To Resist Their Animal Desires, It Aims To Put Chains On Every Man, The Weak And The Strong Alike. And If This Is Proper In One Respect, Why Not In All Respects? Yet, What Would One Think Of A Proposition To Keep All Men Locked Up Because A Certain Number Have A Propensity To Steal?