The aria, after all, is the soul of opera.
I want to be able to depict in music a glass of beer so accurately that every listener can tell whether it is a Pilsner or a Kulmbacher.
If you think that the brass is not blowing loud enough, mute it by a couple of degrees.
Its a funny thing Alice, dying is just the way I composed it in Tod und Verklärung.
I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.
He'd be better off shoveling snow.