Howard Hanson

"My music springs from the soil of the American midwest. It is music of the plains rather than of the city and reflects, I believe, something of the broad prairies of my native Nebraska.""

"As a music theorist, I have always contended that the historical approach to music theory is not enough. The modern theorist should, of course, be able to analyze the music of the masters, to explain (as much as possible) the sources of their musical language. They should also, however, be able to suggest new paths, new theories, including those that break with creative and scholarly tradition....This attitude has puzzled some of my academic colleagues, since I am in my own composition essentially a traditionalist. I do not believe that this is a contradiction or an inconsistency."

"In music, the great essential after creation itself is communication through performance...it is of immediate and primary importance to the creator. For the composer, if he is to develop, must hear his own works. An orchestra composer without an orchestra is like a scientist without his laboratory or a dramatist without his stage or actors."

"The artistic contribution of any nation and any age must be in terms of creation. Performers, symphony organizations, opera houses, museums, libraries - important as they are - are not enough. The arts, if they are to live, must be living arts."

"The most complete knowledge of tonal material cannot create a composer any more than the memorizing of Webster's dictionary can produce a dramatist or poet. Music is, or should be, a means of communication, a vehicle for the expression of the inspiration of the composer. Without that inspiration, without the need to communicate, without— in other words— the creative spirit itself, the greatest knowledge will avail nothing."

"To the artist, to the musician, is given the task of creating and expressing beauty--of sensitizing the souls of men."