What do you think of Puccini? [ Britten: "I think his operas are dreadful." ] No, Ben, you are wrong. He wrote marvellous operas, but dreadful music. - Dmitri Shostakovich

What can be considered human emotions? Surely not only lyricism, sadness, tragedy? Doesn't laughter also have a claim to that lofty title? I want to fight for the legitimate right of laughter in "serious" music.

Music is a means capable of expressing dark dramatism and pure rapture, suffering and ecstasy, fiery and cold fury, melancholy and wild merriment – and the subtlest nuances and interplay of these feelings which words are powerless to express and which are unattainable in painting and sculpture.

What you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.