Pierre Boulez

“To be a composer is to be a kind of provocateur.”

“I believe a composer is not only an architect but also an acoustician.”

“It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because that does not kill the Mona Lisa. All art of the past must be destroyed.”

“You must have an idée fixe, a passion. It is a condition of all creativity.”

“The modern artist must be a demystifier.”

“Any musician who has not experienced, at least once, the necessity of dodecaphonic language is USELESS.”

“A work of art should be like a city: you must be able to get lost in it.”

“The aim of music is not to express feelings but to express music.”

“Amnesia is a necessary condition for invention.”

“Schoenberg is dead.”

“The need for music is a universal need of human beings.”

“Heritage is not transmitted, it is conquered.”

“Music is a labyrinth with no beginning and no end, full of new paths to discover, where mystery remains eternal.”

“I demand of a work of art that it should be not only an object, but a part of a world.”

“I am not a man of the past. I am a man of the present and the future.”