If You're A Good Composer, You Steal

This Must Be The Mission Of Every Man Of Goodwill: To Insist, Unflaggingly, At Risk Of Becoming A Repetitive Bore, But To Insist On The Achievement Of A World In Which The Mind Will Have Triumphed Over Violence.

Even Experimental Composers, Revolutionary Composers, Self-styled Radicals Are, In Writing Revolutionary Music, Recognizing The Music That Preceded Them Precisely By Trying To Avoid It.

Music, Because Of Its Specific And Far-reaching Metaphorical Powers, Can Name The Unnamable And Communicate The Unknowable.

I Hate You, Richard Wagner . . . But I Hate You On My Knees.

It Is Hard To Think Of Another Composer Who So Perfectly Marries Form And Passion.