“For myself I know that, as long as I can summarize my experience in words, I would certainly not make any music about it.”

—  Gustav Mahler

Ich weiß für mich, daß ich, solang ich mein Erlebnis in Worten zusammenfassen kann, gewiß keine Musik hierüber machen würde.
Letter to Max Marschalk (26 March 1896). Original German text cited from: Blaukopf, Herta (ed.). Gustav Mahler. Briefe. 2nd edition. Zsolnay, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-552-04810-3, p. 171.
Variant: If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

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Gustav Mahler5
late-Romantic Austrian composer 1860–1911

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