Composer Quotes

In the discovery of secret things and in the investigation of hidden causes, stronger reasons are obtained from sure experiments and demonstrated arguments than from probable conjectures and the opinions of philosophical speculators of the common sort.

I always voted at my party's call, and I never thought of thinking for myself at all.

You have no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself and how little I deserve it.

The silver swan, who, living had no note, When death approached unlocked her silent throat.

It is proportion that beautifies everything, the whole universe consists of it, and music is measured by it.

Why should I limit myself to only one woman when I can have as many women as I want?

True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today.

Life is a lot like jazz... it's best when you improvise.

There is something inherent in our democracy that tends to want to level. America is a little uncomfortable in the presence of someone who is distinctly superior in whatever way.

The story of Willie Stark fascinated me because it was tackling the story of a man who outwardly has all the success one could possibly want and who is destroyed by his personal demons.

The performances of my works in the last 10 years are probably equal to all the previous years put together. There are so many venues now and there is a completely new public for opera that's grown up outside of the traditional core opera public.

The artist is something of an outsider in America. I have always felt that America does not value its artists, certainly not in the sense that the Europeans do.

Socially I never was an outsider. I have never thought of the conflict element before frankly, but perhaps it was wanting to belong, and at the same time wanting to retain one's own personality.

People in very high places suddenly fall, and we are always surprised because we don't factor in the basic element that they're humans and, therefore, they are flawed and have weaknesses.

Our most intimate contact with civilizations long since dust has been through the art which has survived them.

Opera is given so little attention in the national press.

Most of the important composers in our country are clustered in the Northeast.

Like any other composer of opera, I choose a subject not for polemical reasons, but because it contains vivid characters in highly charged dramatic situations.

It's necessary to track characters all the way through an opera. If you're dealing with more than one or two characters, it's very easy to forget that the others have lives of their own that feed into the story.

It's amazing how fast generations lose sight of other generations. One of the first things the young composers who come to work with me say is that they want to write music people will like, instead of gaining their credentials by being rejected by the audience.

It seems to me opera is just as relevant as an expressive art as anything else.

If something is successful with the audience, it's automatically suspect; the reverse is to say that not to reach audiences is the greatest compliment an artist can receive!

If I felt that one of my operas did not come off I would certainly say so.

If an American audience is given a serious musical theater piece that is well produced, dramatically gripping and wonderfully acted, they'll respond to it.

I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.

I was interested in what was really going on in Salem at that time, and I resolved to investigate this seemingly unorthodox treatment of the people and the period.

I was encouraged by my mother and, to a lesser extent, by my father.

I think anything that is expressed directly and as honestly as possible will last.

I had all the normal interests - I played basketball and I headed the school paper. But I also developed very early a great love for music and literature and the theater.

I found a certain kind of music congenial to me; it never occurred to me to write music that was academically acceptable.