Weber has been playing our French scores by heart to me.”

My friend, do not wait for a master to acknowledge your labor before you believe it is worth doing. I have spent years writing criticism I despised only to fund the symphonies I loved, and still I find myself longing for a single nod from those I admire. Ask yourself if you are waiting for permission to create, or if you are simply too afraid to begin until the world agrees with you.

When Lesueur told me Weber was already playing my own works by heart, he did not say it as a boast of his skill, but as a rebuke of my absence. The music exists whether you hear it or not; the only thing missing is your presence in the room where it lives. Do not let the silence of others fill the space that should be filled with your own sound. Go now and make something true, for the moment you are ready, the world will be listening anyway.