temperament led him into a wholly different region of expression. He
was a prophet of modernity; but it was a modernity that he alone
exemplifies: it has no exact parallel.

Concerning the classics he had his own views. Of Bach he wrote that he
believed him to have accomplished his work as "one of the world's
mightiest tone-poets not by means of the contrapuntal methods of his
day, but in spite of them. The laws of canon and fugue are based upon
as prosaic a foundation as those of the Rondo and Sonata Form, and I
find it impossible to imagine their ever having been a spur, an
incentive, to poetic musical speech."

Of Mozart he wrote: "It is impossible to forget the fact that in his
piano works he was first and foremost a piano virtuoso, a child
prodigy: of whom filigree work (we cannot call this Orientalism, for
it was more or less of German pattern, traced from the _fioriture_ of
the Italian opera singer) was expected by the public for which his
sonatas were written.... We need freshness and sincerity in forming
our judgments of art.... If we read on one page of some history (every
history of music has such a page) that Mozart's sonatas are sublime;
that they far transcend anything written for the harpsichord or
clavichord by Haydn or his contemporaries, we are apt to echo the
saying ... But let us look the thing straight in the face: Mozart's
sonatas are compositions entirely unworthy of the author of 'The Magic
Flute' and 'Don Giovanni,' or of any composer with pretensions to more
than mediocre talent. They are written in a style of flashy
harpsichord virtuosity such as Liszt in his most despised moments
never descended to. Yet I am well aware that this statement would be
dismissed as either absurd or heretical, according to the point of
view of the particular objector."