Sergei Prokofiev

"Formalism is music that people don’t understand at first hearing."

"It seemed to me that had Haydn lived to our day he would have retained his own style while accepting something of the new at the same time. That was the kind of symphony I wanted to write: a symphony …"

"My chief virtue has been a tireless lifelong search for an original, individual musical idiom. I detest imitation, I detest hackneyed devices."

"The first was the classical line, which could be traced back to my early childhood and the Beethoven sonatas I heard my mother play. This line takes sometimes a neo-classical form , sometimes imitates…"

"The time is past when music was written for a handful of aesthetes. Today vast crowds of people have come face to face with serious music and are waiting with eager impatience. Composers, take heed of…"

"This is my best work, but only because The Flaming Angel is my greatest."

"In my view, the composer, just as the poet, the sculptor or the painter, is in duty bound to serve Man, the people. He must beautify human life and defend it. He must be a citizen first and foremost, …"