"It is impossible to fully understand any composition that belongs to any epoch, either before or after Beethoven, if you do not proceed from Beethoven. ...] Only at the level that form had reached in the music of Beethoven could this form ...] reveal something which would unite the music before Beethoven with the music of today." This quote from Philip Herschkowitz (student of Alban Berg and Anton Webern and teacher of Dmitri Smirnov) forms the...