Performance practice

"The poet, painter or sculptor, left to himself in his study or studio, completes the task he has set himself; and once his work is done, he has bookshops to distribute it or museums to exhibit it. There is no intermediary between himself and his judges, whereas the composer is necessarily forced to have recourse to inept or indifferent interpreters who make him suffer through interpretations that are often literal, it is true, but which are quite imperfect when it comes to presenting the work's ideas or the composer's genius."

Franz Liszt, 1837.