A characteristic of older folksongs, in most cases, is that we don't know their composers or authors. Older folksongs were written often with no commercial purpose in mind. They were passed down by word of mouth, from generation to generation.
Tom Glazer

A hundred years ago, of course, the question that the German Composers' Co-operative asked itself sounded a lot more fundamental: How do you create a fair share for those who ensure that works can actually be performed at all?
Johannes Rau

All of these people kept on being professional musicians and composers in the strictest sense.
James Tenney

Although technical discussions are interesting to composers, I suspect that the truly magical and spiritual powers of music arise from deeper levels of our psyche.
George Crumb

America can well expect to develop a goodly amount of composers for she has a goodly number of people.
John Philip Sousa

But still as compared to many, many orchestras in the world, I think you find a lot more new music and living composers on our programs than many other places.
Michael Tilson Thomas

Composers are always going back to the past.
Anne Dudley

Composers are not all good conductors.
Anton Seidl

Composers are the only people who can hear good music above bad sounds.
John Philip Sousa

Composers dialogue - and obsessively, bitterly argue - with other composers, often over the span of several centuries.
Brian Ferneyhough

Composers in the old days used to keep strictly to the base of the theme, as their real subject. Beethoven varies the melody, harmony and rhythms so beautifully.
Johannes Brahms

Composers love to write for symphony orchestras because the symphony is the Rolls Royce of musical instruments.
David Del Tredici

Composers should write tunes that chauffeurs and errand boys can whistle.
Thomas Beecham

Composers shouldn't think too much - it interferes with their plagiarism.
Howard Dietz

Composers today get a TV script on Friday and have to record on Tuesday. It's just dreadful to impose on gifted talent and expect decent music under these conditions.
Alex North

Composers, like authors, have a lot in common. Our main goal is to connect with the listener emotionally.
Ken Hill

Gifted women musicians and composers rarely received their due.
James Cook

Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.
Alberto Moravia

I am certain that most composers today would consider today's music to be rich, not to say confusing, in its enormous diversity of styles, technical procedures, and systems of esthetics.
George Crumb

I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously. There is everything in their work - the best and the worst, but there is always quantity. But I have written relatively little.
Maurice Ravel