I had a quick look around, took off my hat having made sure no one saw me (after all, you never know, especially if you are a newcomer and a foreigner to boot), and began to mount the well-worn stone steps leading upward. A small sign said that the offices of Universal Edition were on the first floor. If you continued your way up, you eventually reached the Library and the Archives of the Society of the Friends of Music. Those very steps had also been trodden by Gustav Mahler and Anton Bruckner, Hugo Wolf and Johann Strauss, Johannes Brahms and Archduke Eugen. I was still holding my hat in my hand. A feeling of reverence overcame me. In the evening, however, as I descended those steps with my hat on, the ghosts had vanished. If in the morning I had been guided by Bruckner and Brahms, my mind was now filled with Schoenberg, Bartók, and Janáček. A single day at Universal Edition, even in the humble position of an intern, had changed my life and put a stamp on it once and for all.