Samuel Adler

"At present...I feel that my works require a modified serial technique, but it is a very unorthodox one, and almost never strictly adhered to throughout a given work. Neither does it destroy all tonal feeling...I do not mean tonality, but I do stress a progressive direction from one "note" center to another...(twelve-tone music) seems to be overly static without providing that experience of forward or backward movement that is an essential part of our musical art."

"I don’t understand any music! I feel it. I want them to feel something! I don’t want them to understand it. If I wanted them to understand exactly what I meant, I can write an essay! I’ve written a lot of speeches and essays and articles and everything else, but I don’t want that! I don’t want a particular thing; I want them to let themselves go and feel something they’ve never felt before. That’s all. That’s what a concert is — not a pleasurable experience; it is an experience of life-changing dimensions!"

"I have one idea about this whole interpretation problem as it relates to orchestral music — too many of our conductors start with old music. What they should do is interpret the music of our time and then go backwards. They would be much better off because if you interpret a contemporary work, where the composer is still alive and have contact with the compositional mind, you will also play older music as looked at from the perspective of the composer, instead of an interpretive kind of idea. I hate the performer that says, “Did you ever hear my Beethoven?” I don’t want to hear his Beethoven! I want to hear Beethoven."

"To me, the wonderful thing about music is a love affair between the performer and the composer, and between the composer and his audience. This love affair is a tripartite thing."

"Too much emphasis is placed upon the technical aspect of contemporary music and not enough on its communicative and aesthetic impact. This is where i strongly disagree with many of my colleagues. I firmly believe that a composer should have all contemporary techniques in his immediate grasp, and must be able to use these as they suit his purposes."