It is always the same with me; only when I experience something do I compose, and only when composing do I experience! After all, a musician's nature can hardly be expressed in words.

Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.

What I wanted and what I visualized while composing has not always been realized.

In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.

It's not just a question of conquering a summit previously unknown, but of tracing, step by step, a new pathway to it.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

That which draws us by its mystical force; what every created thing, even the very stones, feels with absolute certainty as the center of its being... is the force of love. Christians call this "eternal blessedness." It is a necessity of man for growth and joy.