Krzysztof Penderecki Quotes

I made records in the past that are as traditional as any other country records that have been made, but at the same time the records have a contemporary slant on it too.

New music is absolutely integral to classical music.

I'm trying to change the root of funk, trying to make it more progressive, more melodic and more lyrically structured.

The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around.

Progressive music probably wouldn't even really exist if not for the people of the United States having picked up on it and nurtured it in the way they did. It really is an American form of music in the sense that it was nurtured here. So it belongs here. It has become part of the fabric of American musical culture.

And after I compose my programs, but it is very easy because I look to the music in a very natural way without fuss, and so I look always music, in my home, like books and books and books, choose books and you read the pages, so I do this with music, and I make programs.

The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions.

I've written many extra verses to songs that I learned to sing - an extra verse about a friend, or just add some verse - and that led to writing my own songs.

I tried to take heavy metal... and balled it up and chopped it in half and really tried to create a new form of energy. I really tried to re-shape extreme music as I see it through my eyes.

If Mozart were around now he would write a killer rock song.

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.

We have this really retro vibe and style of songwriting and, personally, I wasn't embracing the current state of music until I fell in love with hip-hop. It felt good to suddenly embrace where music was headed, and I think hip-hop is the best at that, because it feels so progressive and everybody wants to be the best.

Always when I write my music, I take my guitar, and I improvise always with a melody, you know, lyrics in Spanish. But sometimes I use some words in English. I don't know why. Maybe because I listen to a lot of music in English.

Tunings are wonderfully inspiring, and it helps you to write music. If I'm stuck, you know, I change the tuning.

Composers need words, but they do not necessarily need poetry. The Russian composer, Aleksandr Mossolov, who chose texts from newspaper small ads, had a good point to make. With revolutionary music, any text can be set to work.

Composing is what I love most from what I do. Each genre has a unique expression that you cannot supplant with another. All the records co-inspire each other though they are not tied conceptually in any way to another.

You can't write much quality, original music on a concertina.

I want to be the most melodic artist. 'His music ability, the way he write, his creativity is undeniable.' I want people to say that about me.

I love listening to things like those wonderful piano pieces of Stockhausen. It's just not my thing as a composer or performer, and thank goodness we're not obliged to be Modernist any more.

I'm not a total chump. I write stuff that's reasonably musically complex.

I don't think there's such a difference between older and newer music as there is between one composer and another.

I try to imagine what the greatest song I could ever write would sound like, and then try to do it.

The model of a composer.

I love to musicalize things. You do employ a whole level of gravity. You use the emotional heft of music.

Songwriting is best. It's the hardest ... finest ... tightest. It also requires the most discipline.