Why write for the orchestra? For one thing it's a very challenging problem.

Talking about a materialistic thing, I get about 13 times more royalties from Europe than I do from America.

The Third Quartet I made the instruments in pairs - Two different pairs - Violin and viola, and violin and cello. They played very different things from each other all through the whole piece.

My musical life started with hearing and being fascinated by contemporary music.

The first thing that struck me about contemporary music in general had been thatthere was not much interest in rhythm.

Right at the end of the war I wrote a piano sonata, which was written at a time when Sam Barber used to come down here and we used to have lunch together in a very nice old hotel that's now not there.

Why write for the orchestra? For one thing it's a very challenging problem.