Before [I reached this stage] I had to master the skill of musical expression, much as one learns a language. But now I had thoroughly learnt the language of music; I had mastered it like a true mother tongue; and so I no longer needed to concern myself over formalities of expression in that which I had set forth: [expression] stood at my command wholly as I required it, to communicate a particular view or sensation from inner necessity. [...] From what has been said, the content of that which must be expressed by the word and tone poet becomes self-evident: it is the purely human, released from all convention.
—Richard Wagner, Drei Operndichtungen nebst einer Mittheilung an seine Freunde
tr. William Ashton Ellis
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