Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody’s piano playing in my living room has to the book I am reading.

I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God.

I haven’t understood a bar of music in my life, but I’ve felt it.

Harpists spend ninety percent of their lives tuning their harps and ten percent playing out of tune.

Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all… music expresses itself.

The Church knew what the Psalmist knew: music praises God. Music is as well, or better, able to praise Him than the building of a church and all its decoration; it is the Church’s greatest ornament.

The Church knew what the Psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise Him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church’s greatest ornament.

The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending.