I have observed, too, that the people of the many countries that I have visited are showing an ever increasing interest in the classical and traditional music of their own cultures.

Perhaps many of the perplexing problems of the new music could be put into a new light if we were to reintroduce the ancient idea of music being a reflection of nature.

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.

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