I have been told that a young would-be composer wrote to Mozart,
asking advice as to how to compose a symphony. Mozart responded
that a symphony was a complex and demanding form and that it would
be better to start with something simpler. The young man
protested, 'But Herr Mozart, you wrote symphonies when you were
younger than I am now.' And Mozart replied, 'I never asked how.'
-- Story told by Isaac Asimov, quoted in "Mozartiana" by Joseph Solman.
