"Today I came down from Hochschober. Up there, in the heights, there one should stay..."

Webern to Schoenberg (quoted by Malcolm Hayes)

"[The Hochschwab] was glorious, because this is not sport for me, not amusement, but something quite different: it is a search for the highest, a discovery of correspondences in nature for everything that serves me as a model, a model for all that I would like to have within myself... These high ravines with their mountain pines and mysterious plants. The latter, above all, touch me deeply. But not because they are so 'beautiful'. It is not the beautiful landscape, the beautiful flowers in the usual romantic sense, that move me. My objective is the deep, unfathomable, inexhaustible meaning in everything, especially in these manifestations of nature. All nature is dear to me, but that which express itself 'up there' is the dearest of all... I always carry my botanical lexicon with me... This physical reality contains all the miracles..."

Webern to Alban Berg (quoted by Malcolm Hayes)