All sciences extraneous to music

Disgusted me; with obstinate disdain

I soon rejected them and gave myself

To music only. Hard the initial step,

And dull the initial path. I overcame

The first adversities. I put up craft

To constitute the pedestal of art.

I turned into a craftsman: to my fingers

I taught submissive, dry dexterity;

My ear, precision. Having stifled sounds,

I cut up music like a corpse. I measured

Harmony by arythmetics. Then only,

Well-versed in science, dared I give myself

To the sweet languor of creative fancy.

I started to compose, but still in silence,

Still secretly, not dreaming yet of glory.

Quite often, having sat in my mute cell

For two, three days - both sleep and food forgotten,

The thrill and tears of inspiration savored -

I burned my work, and frigidly observed

How my ideas, the sounds I had begotten,

Took flame and disappeared with the light smoke.

And what of that? When star-enchanted Gluck

Arose and opened up to us new secrets

(What candidly profound, what charming secrets!),

Did I not leave all I had known before,

And loved so much, and trusted with such fervor,

To follow him, submissively and gaily,

Like one who has gone errant yet encounters

A man to set him on a different course?

By arduous, ever-earnest constancy

At last in the infinity of art

I reached a high degree. Now glory smiled

Upon me finally; in people's hearts