23 Quotes by John Corigliano

The French Revolution is the ultimate modernist statement. Destroy everything. Don't build on the past. There is no past.

You become a great composer when you win a Pulitzer. But I think that now it's a completely meaningless award.

Eighty percent of my pieces gravitate towards an A, as a tonal thing, not at the beginning, but somewhere in it.

I find respect for a mediocre British composer, as opposed to a really good American, ridiculous because they automatically respect a composer if he's from England.

Jazz is not the popular culture. Jazz is in the same position in our culture as classical music. A very small minority of people really love it.

If you take a violin, you can make it sound 50 different ways. Not just pizzicato and played by the bow, but ponticello, and harmonics, and tremolos. If you take an oboe and play it, there's about one way you can make it sound: like an oboe.

The French Revolution is the ultimate modernist statement. Destroy everything. Don’t build on the past. There is no past.

If you take a violin, you can make it sound 50 different ways. Not just pizzicato and played by the bow, but ponticello, and harmonics, and tremolos. If you take an oboe and play it, there’s about one way you can make it sound: like an oboe.

I think it’s good for the composer to teach because you always have new students and you have to begin at the beginning and make things clear.