Have we not all about us forms of a musical expression which we can take and purify and raise to the level of great art?.

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

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

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

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.

A supreme composer can only come out of a musical nation.

I have always found it difficult to study. I have learnt almost entirely what I have learnt by trying it out on the dog.