I found a quote of Beethoven which is taken from a letter to his friend:

   "You will ask where my ideas come from.  I cannot say for certain.
   They come uncalled, sometimes independently, sometimes in association
   with other things.  It seems to me that I could wrest them from Nature
   herself with my own hands, as I go walking in the woods.  They come
   to me in the silence of the night or in the early morning, stirred
   into being by moods which the poet would put into words, but which
   I put into sounds; and these go through my head ringing and singing
   and storming until at last I have them before me as notes."

I love the late sonatas by Beethoven.  Op 109 especially.  The music is
truly noble and poetic.  The above quote captures a small sense of the
intensity and richness of Beethoven's personality.

Philippa
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