How much of these changes meant may be studied from such of these memorandum books as are still in existence and comparing the first sketch with the finished composition. Thus the first movement of the fifth symphony, which opens so grandly was not at all grand in its first inception, but chattering and jovial. The beautiful slow movement was first thought of as something in the style of a minuet.

The may be a surprise to many, who imagine that each great composition represents the great and untrammeled inspiration.  Such is seldom the case, yet we come very near to the fount of inspiration in the case of Schubert, who wrote in a more spontaneous manner than any other composer. He composed under any and all circumstances and seldom revised his work after writing down his first inspiration. Thus he once got up in the middle the night because he had been struck with a musical idea, and rushed to the table which stood near his bed for just such emergencies and wrote a song. In those days, before blotting paper existed, it was customary to strew sand upon the writing to dry it. Schubert reached out for the sand bottle, caught the ink bottle by mistake, and pour a broad smooch of ink over his manuscript. He rubbed it off as best he could and sent it for publication with the blot still on it. Another one of his songs was written in a restaurant on the back of the menu.

“Easy come, easy go” was a true proverb in Schubert’s case. He forgot his works as easily as he created them. He wrote a song for a friend, who sent it out to a copyist to have it transposed. Schubert picked up the work written in an unknown hand and said “This isn’t half bad! Who wrote it?”

It is the more to the credit of Beethoven that he did not adopt a similar mode of rapidity when it is remembered that he was one of the greatest improvisers of his time. It is very possible that many of his improvisations would rival his published compositions. Beethoven had many musical intentions that he did not carry out. If while he was in his room a good figure or musical phrase occurred to him, he would write it down in his awful musical scrawl and drop it into a basket at his side for use at some time in the future. Sometimes when he was changing his lodging and he was very often doing this, he would carry half a dozen baskets filled with such embryonic thoughts.

Since we have spoken of the very poor musical handwriting of Beethoven, we may add that Mozart wrote a neat and clear hand, but the best of all the musical calligraphists was Wagner, who wrote so excellently that some of his scores were photographed for used, directly from his manuscript, instead of typeset.

To return to our rapid composers, Handel composed “The Messiah”  in 24 days. We must bear in mind however that he did not write out a complete score for in those days it was sufficient for the director, who was almost always a composer himself, to have a skeleton outline of the orchestral work, a proceeding that has caused some disputes over the works of Bach and Handel.

Mozart was one of the rapid composers. He wrote the overture to “Don Giovanni” in the night before the first performance of the opera in the Prague. His wife sat by him and kept him awake by telling him the gossip of the neighborhood at intervals. It is also on record that he also used some direct stimulants. The messenger-boy from the theatre seized each sheet of manuscript as he finished it and rushed with it to the copyist that the parts might be written out. Occasionally the composer took a nap during the process but soon awoke and resumed his task. One can judge the speed of the work by the speech which Mozart made to the orchestra just before they were going on to play the overture, at sight, under his direction. “Gentleman of the brass,” said he, “I have made some mistake in your parts somewhere. There are either four measures too many or too few. Watch my beat closely and we will get over the gap.”

It will be noticed that the trained composer does not work at the keyboard in composition, yet the help of the keyboard is not to be despised. Even so great a composer as Haydn did much composition at the keyboard, and all the composers occasionally play over their work while in course of construction to judge some of the effects by the ear. Some have protested against judging a composition merely by looking it over and maintain that to appreciate a serious work requires the aid of the ear. Yet the reader may be reminded that Beethoven, on his deathbed, heartily enjoyed the works of Handel, propped up on pillows and reading page after page. (Beethoven was deaf by this time.)

Accepting Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” overture as a curiosity of composition because of the above-mentioned circumstances, one can place beside it another overture, the “Ruy Blas” by Felix Mendelssohn. When writing an orchestral score, the composer usually fills in part by part, doing the woodwind, the brasses, and the strings separately. But in this work, Mendelssohn, in order to show his mastery of routine, wrote measure by measure, filling in all the parts at once.

Rossini is also be spoken of among the musical sprinters, and he is said once to have been composing while in bed, where the wind blew one of his songs away. Rather than get up and look for it he wrote another song.

Against these speedy composers once can place the more deliberate ones. Wagner’s Trilogy is a giant work, but he was about 25 years composing it. Brahms’s First Symphony was 10 years.

Composers differ greatly in their views as to what stimulant to creation is best. Beethoven had the purest and healthiest method – walks in the country. Gluck always wore a special ring when writing music. Domenico Scarlatti had a pet cat by him, and once, when she scampered from his shoulder across the keyboard of his spinet, he wrote down the notes that she struck and used them as a fugal subject in his celebrated “Cat Fugue.”

Schubert wrote best when he was unhappiest. With Schumann it was exactly the opposite. His sensitive nature was entirely crushed when melancholy came upon him, and then he wrote little or nothing. But when he was happy his muse was most prolific. His best songs and his first symphony were written during his honeymoon. His third symphony, the last of his great works, was written when he first settled in Dusseldorf and began to enjoy the beautiful Rhine life.

Wagner stimulated himself to composition in his later days by furnishing his palatial study according to the subject which he was writing. If it was something majestic and grandiose he would dress himself in silks and satins and would have flowers, rich tapestries, and valuable laces  around him. If he were composing a somber subject, he would dress in gray and would have black hangings around the chamber.

The humor to be found in the works of the classical repertory is more abundant than many musicians may imagine. Haydn had his little jest in The Surprise Symphony by a very sudden kettledrum stroke in the midst of a very soothing passage. “That will make the ladies jump,” he said. Beethoven brought in a village band in his pastoral symphony to play for the dancers in the third movement, and in this band we find a drunken bassoonist with an instrument that can only give 3 notes -  F, C, F - which the musician plays as often as he can fit them into the harmony.  Mozart composed “A Musical Joke” in which he portrays an unskilled country conductor trying to compose a great classical work. The final ambitious attempt at a fugue, the pompous announcement of the subject and answer, and the sudden collapse when it comes to treating them, the retreat being covered by many fortissimo chords, are very funny.  Bach also had his humorous moments in his “Coffee Cantata” and “Peasant’s Cantata.”