Intellectual isolation always follows commercial isolation. Just as surely as every new language mastered opens up a new world, so knowledge of a Beethoven, a Chopin, or a Schumann opens up a new world in spiritual beauty and thought. Man is naturally lazy, therefore he invents labor-saving devices. Music expresses first of all sadness rather than joy. Music is the only art that actually lives.
Musical expression is never primarily national, but is personal and individual rather.
It is so deep, so profound, that it goes beyond and below nationality and gives voice to the most private feeling. In music there is never exact heredity. Each man is an individual. Out in the garden where the air is sweet with the breath of roses, with sighs of jasmine and of lily, a lovely daughter of the house, under the shielding murmur of the limes, caught in a starry Nocturne, whispers to some sad youth the tender sorrows of the summer night. Rhythm is the pulse of music.