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

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

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.

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.

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

This is not a happy time for this kind of music in this country.