George Crumb Quotes

"There is, to be sure, a sense of adventure and challenge in articulating our conceptions, despite the fact that we can take so little for granted; and perhaps we tend to underestimate the struggle-element in the case of the earlier composers."

"An American or European composer, for example, now has access to the music of various Asian, African, and South American cultures."

"In a broader sense, the rhythms of nature, large and small - the sounds of wind and water, the sounds of birds and insects - must inevitably find their analogues in music."

"The development of new instrumental and vocal idioms has been one of the remarkable phenomena of recent music."

"Perhaps many of the perplexing problems of the new music could be put into a new light if we were to reintroduce the ancient idea of music being a reflection of nature."

"Unquestionably, our contemporary world of music is far richer, in a sense, than earlier periods, due to the historical and geographical extensions of culture to which I have referred."

"One very important aspect of our contemporary musical culture - some might say the supremely important aspect - is its extension in the historical and geographical senses to a degree unknown in the past."

"If we look at music history closely, it is not difficult to isolate certain elements of great potency which were to nourish the art of music for decades, if not centuries."

"Perhaps of all the most basic elements of music, rhythm most directly affects our central nervous system."

"Perhaps two million years ago the creatures of a planet in some remote galaxy faced a musical crisis similar to that which we earthly composers face today."

"Nonetheless, I sense that it will be the task of the future to somehow synthesize the sheer diversity of our present resources into a more organic and well-ordered procedure."

"I think we're in a very low point of music right now."

"Numerous recordings of non-Western music are readily available, and live performances by touring groups can be heard even in our smaller cities."

"As interesting as that music can occasionally be, I don't think it really replaces the other."

"This awareness of music in its largest sense - as a world-wide phenomenon - will inevitably have enormous consequences for the music of the future."

"It is easy to write unthinking music."

"In any case, the task of finding fresh approaches to opera and to choral music will be inherited by the future."

"But I don't think it's a good thing to create less than good music in a world that's full of a lot of indifferent music."