Toop 79: "Varèse had an insatiable appetite for material which reinforced his conviction that music should be experienced physically, rather than through the understanding and acceptance of a harmonic system."
He delved into "the hermetic museum of alchemical texts" and "acoustical studies from India, China, Egypt and ancient Greece"
also was interested in Hermann Helmholtz's studies of "physiological acoustics, particularly the sections on sirens"
he "spent all his life envisaging instruments which could express the soundworld of his imagination" (81)
he wanted to "resonate the human body [and] stir the soul" and he thought of music as an "emotional, political and ritualistic force"