Toward the end of his life, one can sense that he was no longer thinking his way into the minds of others, causing them to speak on his behalf, but that he was now speaking for himself.

If you only do little clusters - three or four songs by one, and another, and then yet another - you lose the opportunity to think your way into the composer's mind, since, after all, most of these pieces are quite brief.

One has to get through a big pile of mail every day. I don't pass my letters on to a secretary; rather, I try to take care of all of them myself.

Many, many composers have only found their way to a certain form, through familiarizing themselves with texts.

Within each individual young person you meet, you have the same fields to plough. The trick is just to wake them up, to sharpen their ears for what's already there in the music.

It is desirable that people make music on the breath, with the breath.

The work is the most important thing.