evolved a theme for which he afterward found a use. In looking over a
sketch-book in the summer he would run across something he liked, and
the idea would expand into a matured work.

His sketch-books are full of all kinds of random and fugitive
material--half-finished fugues, canons, piano pieces, songs, single
themes. Undoubtedly this habit of work had its value when he came to
the leisurely months of summer; for he did not then have to go through
a period of technical "warming up." There were many days when he did
not write a note, but he always intended to, and usually did. When he
was absorbed in a particular composition he kept at it, almost night
and day, save for the hours he always tried to spend in the open air,
and two hours in the evening when, no matter how late it might be, he
sat quietly with his wife, reading or talking, smoking, and, in
earlier days, enjoying a glass of beer and some food. His love of
reading was a godsend to him when the waters were more than usually
troubled and his brain was in a whirl.

In the actual work of composition he was elaborately meticulous--not
often to the extent of changing an original plan, but in minor
details; he never ceased working on a score until the music was out of
his hands, or entirely put aside. Sometimes he tried over a few
measures on the piano as many as fifty times, changing the value or
significance of a note; as a result, his piano writing is almost
always "pianistic." In one respect he was sometimes careless: in the
noting of the expression marks. By the time he arrived at that duty he
was usually tired out. For this reason, much in his printed music is
marked differently from the way he actually played it in concert. He
never, in performance, changed a note, save in a few of the earlier
pieces; but in details of expression he often departed widely from the