I do not ask for my music to be interpreted, but only for it to be played.
Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second.
If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have been better for music.
I did my work slowly, drop by drop. I tore it out of me by pieces.
You might lose your spontaneity and, instead of composing first-rate Gershwin, end up with second rate Ravel.
I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously. There is everything in their work - the best and the worst, but there is always quantity. But I have written relatively little.