“The model of a composer.”

One day I’ll be able to relax a bit, and try and become a good composer.

These two are not two, love has made them one. Amo Ergo Sum! And by its mystery each is no less but more.

Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house. Slowly you see more details of the house-the color of the slates and bricks, the shape of the windows. The notes are the bricks and the mortar of the house.

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony.

I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music.

The old idea of a composer suddenly having a terrific idea and sitting up all night to write it is nonsense. Nighttime is for sleeping.

Composing is like driving down a foggy road.

I am an arrogant and impatient listener, but in the case of a few composers, a very few, when I hear a work I do not like.

Music does not excite until it is performed.

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful.

I am convinced that it is my own fault. Verdi is one of those composers.

Men have been in the forefront of music for centuries, and they have written glorious music, loved and appreciated by many. In some ways, men are still in the forefront. There is a lot of room for composers of all types of music by both men and women, nowadays.

And then, just like that, my heart broke. My face crumpled, my composure went and I held him tightly and I stopped caring that he could feel the shudder of my sobbing body because grief swamped me.

I hadn’t realized that music could unlock things in you, could transport you to somewhere even the composer hadn’t predicted. It left an imprint in the air around you, as if you carried its remnants with you when you went.

I’ve been very fortunate as a composer to be involved with projects that have really propelled my scores forward. I’m very proud of it.

The composer…joins Heaven and Earth with threads of sounds.

When the great Composer shall transpose all the strains of earth from the minor into the major, when the wail of nature shall give way to the glad harmony of the everlasting jubilee.

There is competition. It’s almost like I’m back in tennis competing in a way. There are usually about twenty composers vying for the number one spot for a big or medium film.

Composers can do things that weren’t allowed in the 17th century. Until we had composers like Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff to break the rules.