In _Abt Vogler_ the miracle of extemporisation
has just been accomplished. The musician sits at the keys, tears
running down his face: tears of weakness, because of the storm of
divine inspiration that has passed through him: tears of sorrow,
because he never can recapture the fine, careless rapture of his
unpremeditated music: tears of joy, because he knows that on this
particular day he has been the channel chosen by the Infinite God.
If he had only been an architect, his dream would have remained in a
permanent form. The armies of workmen would have done his will, and
the world would have admired it for ages. If he had only been a poet
or a painter, his inspiration would have taken the form of fixed
type or enduring shape and color: but in the instance of music, the
armies of thoughts that have worked together in absolute harmony to
elevate the noble building of sound, which has risen like an
exhalation, have vanished together with the structure they animated.
It has gone like the wonderful beauty of some fantastic cloud.
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