I suppose it never occurs to these people that a man might just want to write a piece of music.

The art of music above all the other arts is the expression of the soul of a nation.

The great men of music close periods; they do not inaugurate them. The pioneer work, the finding of new paths, is left to smaller men.

Wagner used to read the libretti of his operas to his friends; I am glad I was not there.

Why should we not enter into our inheritance in the church as well as the concert hall?

Music is the reaching out towards the utmost realities by means of ordered sound.

Two years of close association with some of the best (as well as some of the worst) tunes in the world was a better musical education than any amount of sonatas and fugues.