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 the kind of symphony I wanted to write: a symphony in the classical style. And when I saw that my idea was beginning to work, I called it the Classical Symphony.

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 'Scherzo-ish' in…

The time is past when music was written for a handful of aesthetes. Today vast crowds of people have come face to face with serious music and are waiting with …

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 hackneyed …

'If...Berg departs so radically from tradition, through his substitution of a symmetrical partitioning of the octave for the asymmetrical partionings of the ma…

I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself h…

The music has gotten thick. Guys give me tunes and they're full of chords. I can't play them...I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the convention…