The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It's useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.

The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It's useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.

You may feel depressed, but it can't be so depressing that you can't move. No, I would say that people create in moments when they are elated about expressing their depression!

Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.

Music that is born complex is not inherently better or worse than music that is born simple.

You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room - proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.

Mozart in his music was probably the most reasonable of the world's great composers. It is the happy balance between flight and control, between sensibility and self-discipline, simplicity and sophistication of style that is his particular province... Mozart tapped once again the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breath-taking rightness that has never since been duplicated.