However, I began composing as soon as I started taking piano lessons.

I think a composer is always interested in his last work.

I continued to study Math and Physics on my own, but one and a half years later I realized that I did want to be a composer, and after that I never changed my mind.

But if you go from Moscow to Budapest you think you are in Paris.

First of all I listen to music. I like music.

In January 1944 I was called up by the Forced Labor Service, but I deserted on October 10, 1944.

I was fifteen years old, and I hardly knew how to play a simple Bach prelude on the piano when I began to compose music, and at the most advanced level. I had never studied such things as harmony.