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| Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky |
“You ask me, my friend, if I have known love other than platonic. Yes and no. If the question had been differently put, if you had asked me whether I had ever found complete happiness in love, I should have replied no, and again, no. Besides, I think the answer to this question is to be heard in my music. If, however, you ask me whether I have felt the whole power and inexpressible stress of love, I must reply yes, yes, yes; for often and often have I striven to render in music all the anguish and the bliss of love. Whether I have been successful I do not know, or rather I leave others to judge. I do not in the least agree with you that music cannot interpret the universal nature of love. On the contrary, I think only music is capable of doing so. You say words are necessary. O no! This is just where words are not needed, and where they have no power; a more eloquent language comes in, which is music."
-Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, in a letter to his beloved patron and friend, Nadezhda von Meck; Florence, 1878
-Rose.
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