It may well be that some composers do not believe in God. All of them, however, believe in Bach.
Bela BartokFolk melodies are the embodiment of an artistic perfection of the highest order; in fact, they are models of the way in which a musical idea can be expressed with utmost perfection in terms of brevity of form and simplicity of means.
Bela BartokHis pagan barbarity, his explosive and angrily defiant melancholy, his demoniacal instinct . . . these are all echoes . . . of the thousand-year-old Hungarian psyche.
Bela BartokWith maturity comes the wish to economize - to be more simple. Maturity is the period when one finds the just measure.
Bela Bartok