“…all talent, all application will not suffice if one’s whole life is not directed towards being a mediator of great thoughts and feelings. Every deed, yes, every thought leaves its trace on the personality. One must live a life of purity in every detail, even down to the morsel one is putting into one’s mouth. Prepared in this way, that something will appear which is unteachable, that grace of the quiet hour when the spirit of the composer speaks to us, that unconscious moment when one is raised out of oneself, call it intuition, grace – then all ties are loosened, all hindrances are swept away. You feel yourself hovering. One feels no longer: I am playing, but IT is playing, and behold all is well; as if directed by a divine hand … in humility you experience the supreme happiness of the interpretive artist: to be only the mediator between the Divine, the Eternal and man.”

Edwin Fisher (pianist)

Cited at: Crisis Magazine. Accessed 12 July 2012