I have often wondered why I am who I am and why I seem programmed as such. When I reread the words below, those of Sergei Rachmaninoff, I realized that for all his great musical output (disparaged by the likes of Stravinsky) he, early on, had been "cast" in a unique creative mold, never to take on any other musical form. Good for the world of music!
"I cannot cast out the old way of writing and I cannot acquire the new. I have made intensive efforts to feel the musical manner of today, but it will not come to me."