Composer Quotes

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.

The terror of performing never goes away. Instead, you get very, very comfortable being terrified.

It may well be that some composers do not believe in God. All of them, however, believe in Bach.

Well, American composers are the best composers. At this time in the world, we are where the energy is. We are the most diverse, the most iconoclastic, the most maverick, and the most skillful.

We consider Monteverdi the first composer of opera. There was someone before, but everything started with Monteverdi.

I am but an architectural composer.

To be a success as a Broadway composer, you must be Jewish or gay. I'm both.

Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned. I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music.

A lot of composers before me have been on this mission to change the world by getting off equal temperament, and I'm definitely one of those.

Händel is the greatest and ablest of all composers; from him I can still learn.

The greatest composer does not sit down to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working.

Stravinsky the composer I worship. Stravinsky the thinker I despise.

Music was not invented by the composer, but found.

When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer.

Freddie Bryant is a brilliant young guitarist and composer.

My dream was always to be a composer, but fashion came very easily.

There are no woman composers, never have been and possibly never will be.

I shall be the first composer in history not to have a biography.

He's not a performer, he's not a composer, he's not even a musician, but Norman Granz is Mr. Jazz.

I am a composer in search of oblivion; and I'm always slightly ashamed to admit that I compose.

A good composer is slowly discovered and a bad composer is slowly found out.

It is the power of music to carry one directly into the mental state of the composer.

Gifted women musicians and composers rarely received their due.

A large part of my work has been collaborating with composers; I think we've commissioned about 140 pieces now, a lot of them percussion concertos.

Claude Debussy was a rare phenomenon a composer profoundly and subversively revolutionary.