That is why the analogy of stealing does not work. With a thief, we want to know how much money he or she stole, and from whom? With the artist it is not how much he or she took from whom, but what the artist did with it.

To me, Mozart is our Shakespeare, the one who wrote the most dramatic, psychologically most baffling music. He combined ideas that no one else would have thought of putting together.

I strongly suggest that we play down basics like who influenced whom, and instead study the way the influence is transformed, in other words: how the artist made it his own.

It is obvious that anything a scientist discovers or invents is based on previous discoveries and inventions. The same applies to the arts.

Since age seven, I've been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.

To understand Mozart's contradictory qualities would indeed be to understand genius.

I don't dare postulate about science, but I know that it takes both emotion and intellect in order for art to happen.