Famous quotes by Composers

"There is a wonderful Hungarian literature, especially in lyric poetry"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"Gesualdo was very important to me, I wanted to do something which corresponded to him"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"For the past ten years, I have had no financial problems"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"When I dealt with set theory, I could never make it be the music that I wanted"

Harrison Birtwistle, Composer

"There are rhythmic ideas which sometimes only work up to a point. In writing there are moments when it just comes off the page, it's not just a collection of notes"

Harrison Birtwistle, Composer

"I wrote music as soon as I knew notation"

Harrison Birtwistle, Composer

"Steinberg is great. I should like to meet him"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"My grandfather was not a musician but he was an artist - a painter, a decorative painter"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"I lived under the Nazis and under the Communists"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"I listen to all kinds of music - new music, old music, music of my colleagues, everything"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"I don't use old music"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"But if you go from Moscow to Budapest, you think you are in Paris"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"The modern composer builds upon the foundation of truth"

Claudio Monteverdi, Composer

"A train was born without any effort - if was like writing a letter to a friend"

Billy Strayhorn, Composer

"Now I have children of my own. They ask their mother, 'What will I be? Will I be handsome, will I be rich?'"

Jay Livingston, Composer

"My operas usually come from musical ideas rather than ideas about subject matter"

Harrison Birtwistle, Composer

"Music is such a problem in the time it takes"

Harrison Birtwistle, Composer

"It's the irrational things that interest me"

Harrison Birtwistle, Composer

"I think music has gone through a period of something very severe, rather radical, rather the way painting did with cubism"

Harrison Birtwistle, Composer

"I don't have ideas so much as there are things which constantly evolve... there are various threads or layers, if you like, which change"

Harrison Birtwistle, Composer

"Yes, fractals are what I want to find in my music"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"If you come from Paris to Budapest, you think you are in Moscow"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"I write bars for the musicians, because they have to be together"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"I only want to give a metaphysic for my music"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"I like to stay home and listen to recordings"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"This sounds horribly pretentious, but I like to think that if music hadn't existed, I could have invented it"

Harrison Birtwistle, Composer

"One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things"

Harrison Birtwistle, Composer

"In my piano concerto, I developed this polyphony to much higher complexity"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"First of all, I listen to music. I like music"

Gyorgy Ligeti, Composer

"I'm not fit company for man or beast"

Billy Strayhorn, Composer

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