Symphonies Quotes

If I weren't the way I am, I shouldn't write my symphonies.

We can't afford big symphonies but we commission works that sound rich and symphonic because of the nature of the instrumentation and the people we work with.

I think that of my 21 symphonies, each has its own place.

We've been performing with symphonies all of our career and it sounds so wonderful when they play 'My Girl' with the large string section, I want to turn around and look.

If some of our works are symphonies, then wrapped walkways was chamber music.

Most Beethoven symphonies require 80 or more instruments, and the late romantics even more.

Now I'm having the time of my life being on the road with one of the world's all-time great big bands, and performing with symphonies. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Jazz tickles your muscles, symphonies stretch your soul.

This is what I want in heaven... words to become notes and conversations to be symphonies.

I hear entire symphonies, oratorios, in my head, but I can't write a note.

I would advise my young colleagues, the composers of symphonies, to drop in sometimes at the kindergarten, too. It is there that it is decided whether there will be anybody to understand their works in twenty years' time.

Although, I am proud of all my Symphonies as they all have something special to say, my particular favourite is the Fifth. As the great Mahler expert Donald Mitchell said that if Mahler had written another Symphony, it would have been my Fifth!