One very important aspect of our contemporary musical culture - some might say the supremely important aspect - is its extension in the historical and geographical senses to a degree unknown in the past.

I have observed, too, that the people of the many countries that I have visited are showing an ever increasing interest in the classical and traditional music of their own cultures.

I believe that music surpasses even language in its power to mirror the innermost recesses of the human soul

Unquestionably, our contemporary world of music is far richer, in a sense, than earlier periods, due to the historical and geographical extensions of culture to which I have referred.

Nonetheless, I sense that it will be the task of the future to somehow synthesize the sheer diversity of our present resources into a more organic and well-ordered procedure.

Perhaps many of the perplexing problems of the new music could be put into a new light if we were to reintroduce the ancient idea of music being a reflection of nature.

Perhaps two million years ago the creatures of a planet in some remote galaxy faced a musical crisis similar to that which we earthly composers face today.