“The man [Schubert] is not quite there; the music is another thing altogether. Its presence—its immediacy—is tremendous. It often inspires a kind of unsafe love in its listeners. I am certainly one of the victims. I remember my first encounters with Schubert’s works like teenage crushes. Most of all, I remember playing through the first movement of the great Piano Sonata in B-flat and physically trembling as the main theme stole back onto the page, one octave higher, like a handsome ghost of itself.”

- Alex Ross, “Great Soul” from Listen To This. (via residuetheory)