I offered Professor Kendall Taylor the piano suite Symbole (Symbols) to celebrate his 90th birthday; the piece contains many memories we share. We went climbing in Wales with Kendall Taylor and did three peaks in one day. I had any alphorn with me, and Kendall Taylor taught me the melody which Brahms sent to Clara Schumann from the mountain of Rigi and which he later used in his symphony. It's easy to hear all these memories in the first movement Berg (Mountain), but for me, Berg means more than just a memory: a mountain is for me a symbol of greatness, continuity, eternity, of a way which leads upwards. Kendall Taylor and his wife have a wonderful rose-garden and look after it with much care. The Rose. this famous flower of love is a symbol for beauty, for deep mystery and transitoriness. The German poet Hermann Hesse writes in his book Das Glasperlenspiel how a young innocent man came to an old wise master, who opened the book I Ging and read the sign Mong in it which shows a mountain and a source rising at its foot. This symbol means: "Young foolishness succeeds. lt's not I who looks for the young foolish, it's the young foolish who looks for me." The last movement, Quelle (Source), shows this source rising at the foot of the mountain, or rather this young foolish piano student looking for the old wise master.
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