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

I think that of my 21 symphonies, each has its own place.

To me, atonality is against nature. There is a center to everything that exists. The planets have the sun, the earth, the moon.

This is not to say that the Scots are not fine people, but they were all sort of... well, my grandfather was a minister and sort of Protestant, and this was rather depressing to me.

My mother's background was Scottish. She came from an old family, some of whom lived in upper New York State and some of whom had come over from Scotland.

There is nothing like practice.

I was born in Somerville, but I don't remember very much about it because we moved from there to Arlington when I was five years old, and it was in Arlington that I spent most of my childhood.