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Brahms' Variations are better than mine, but mine were written before his.

After working with Ligeti I began to hear Brahms and Beethoven differently.

I like classical music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and I adore Bach above all.

That was one of the big problems when I was at Harvard studying music. We had to write choral pieces in the style of Brahms or Mendelssohn, which was distressing because in the end you realized how good Brahms is, and how bad you are.

I love gentle, gorgeous classical music such as Mozart.

I love music. I have a fondness for Chopin, and I very much like his 'Raindrop Prelude.'

I've got great joy from rediscovering Western music. I love Schumann and Chopin, and those amazing symphonies of Bruckner.

In a fit at the bookstore one day, I bought all my favourite composers' biographies: Schubert, Massenet, Wolf. I've still not had a chance to read them; it breaks my heart. But when you travel so much, you just can't take that many books with you.

When I was 20, Shostakovich was my favorite composer. I still find his Fifth Symphony wonderful, with its outstanding themes and rhythms. That's the piece that made me want to be a classical composer.

I'm a fan of many different styles of classical and symphonic music.