Beethoven's Ninth Symphony became the mystical goal of all my
strange thoughts and desires about music. I was first attracted
to it by the opinion prevalent among musicians, not only in
Leipzig but elsewhere, that this work had been written by
Beethoven when he was already half mad. It was considered the
'non plus ultra' of all that was fantastic and incomprehensible,
and this was quite enough to rouse in me a passionate desire to
study this mysterious work. At the very first glance at the
score, of which I obtained possession with such difficulty, I
felt irresistibly attracted by the long-sustained pure fifths
with which the first phrase opens: these chords, which, as I
related above, had played such a supernatural part in my childish
impressions of music, seemed in this case to form the spiritual
keynote of my own life. This, I thought, must surely contain the
secret of all secrets, and accordingly the first thing to be done
was to make the score my own by a process of laborious copying. I
well remember that on one occasion the sudden appearance of the
dawn made such an uncanny impression on my excited nerves that I
jumped into bed with a scream as though I had seen a ghost. The
symphony at that time had not yet been arranged for the piano; it
had found so little favour that the publisher did not feel
inclined to run the risk of producing it. I set to work at it,
and actually composed a complete piano solo, which I tried to
play to myself. I sent my work to Schott, the publisher of the
score, at Mainz. I received in reply a letter saying 'that the
publishers had not yet decided to issue the Ninth Symphony for
the piano, but that they would gladly keep my laborious work,'
and offered me remuneration in the shape of the score of the
great Missa Solemnis in D, which I accepted with great pleasure.