I was fifteen years old, and I hardly knew how to play a simple Bach prelude on the piano when I began to compose music, and at the most advanced level. I had never studied such things as harmony.
Once, in London, the BBC asked me what was my favorite English book. I said Alice in Wonderland.
There is a wonderful Hungarian literature, especially in lyric poetry.
But I do not want to use Hungarian verses for British people.
But if you go from Moscow to Budapest you think you are in Paris.
I lived under the Nazis and under the Communists.
When I was younger I was completely without money – when I was studying in Budapest, when I was a refugee.
Perhaps the better word is emotional yes, I am an emotional man.
New York is the dream world, the center of jazz and rock.
I think it was when I was nineteen, by that time the Jewish laws were already in force and the split was beginning to come about which isolated the Jewish culture.
Well I live in Vienna with my wife and son, and I teach in Hamburg, there will be no changes in that respect.
People often thought Leopold Auer was Russian because he lived in St. Petersburg so long, almost fifty years.
My grandfather was not a musician but he was an artist – a painter, a decorative painter.
In January 1944 I was called up by the Forced Labor Service, but I deserted on October 10, 1944.
I think a composer is always interested in his last work.
I only want to give a metaphysic for my music.
I don’t use old music.
First of all I listen to music. I like music.
For the past ten years I have had no financial problems.
I know already the music I will write. But the words? I have not yet decided.