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 pick up the New York Times or Time and it's talking about the latest rock group, which I'm sure is exciting to some people, but it neglects a huge area of music.

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.

I am certain that most composers today would consider today's music to be rich, not to say confusing, in its enormous diversity of styles, technical procedures, and systems of esthetics.

As interesting as that music can occasionally be, I don't think it really replaces the other.

The rhythms of nature - the sounds of wind and water, the sounds of birds and insects - must inevitably find their analogues in music.

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.