I strenuously object to the very word "grotesque" which has become hackneyed to the point of nausea...I would prefer my music to be described as "Sch….

My chief virtue (or if you like, defect) has been a tireless lifelong search for an original, individual musical idiom. I detest imitation, I detest ….

When the Second World War broke out, I felt that everyone must do his share, and I began composing songs and marches for the front. But soon events a….

At home we didnt talk about religion. So gradually the question faded away by itself and disappeared from the agenda. When I was nineteen my father d….

There are still so many beautiful things to be said in C major..

It seemed to me that had Haydn lived to our day he would have retained his own style while accepting something of the new at the same time. That was ….

Of course I have used dissonance in my time, but there has been too much dissonance. Bach used dissonance as good salt for his music. Others applied ….

I want nothing better, more flexible or more complete than the sonata form, which contains everything necessary for my structural purposes..

I have never doubted the importance of melody. I like melody very much, and I consider it the most important element in music, and I labour many year….

In my view, the composer, just as the poet, the sculptor or the painter, is in duty bound to serve Man, the people. He must beautify life and defe….

Formalism is music that people don't understand at first hearing..

My mother had to explain that one couldnt compose a Liszt rhapsody because it was a piece of music that Liszt himself had composed..

I detest imitation, I detest hackneyed devices..