Mendelssohn intended certain arpeggio passages "as a reminder of the
sweet scent of the flower rising up."

Mozart, as many witnesses have testified, was especially attuned to
composition by the sight of beautiful scenery. Rochlitz relates that
when he travelled with his wife through picturesque regions he gazed
attentively and in silence at the surrounding sights; his features,
which usually had a reserved and gloomy, rather than a cheerful
expression, gradually brightened, and then he began to sing, or rather
to hum, till suddenly he exclaimed: "If I only had that theme on
paper." He always preferred to live in the country, and wrote the
greater part of his two best operas, "Don Juan," and "The Magic
Flute," in one of those picturesque little garden houses which are so
often seen in Austria and Germany. In one of these airy structures, he
confessed, he could write more in ten days than he could in his
apartments in two months.

Berlioz relates somewhere that the musical ideas for his "Faust" came
to him unbidden during his rambles among Italian hills. Weber's
melodies are so much like fragrant forest flowers that one feels sure
before being told that he came across them in the woods and fields.
His famous pupil, Sir Julius Benedict, relates that Weber took as
great delight in taking his friends to see his favorite bits of
landscape, as he did in composing a fine piece of music; and he adds
that "this love of nature, and principally of forest life, may explain
his predilection, in the majority of his operas, for hunting choruses
and romantic scenery."

Richard Wagner conceived most of his vigorous and eloquent leading
melodies during his rambles among the picturesque environs of