Gesualdo was very important to me, I wanted to do something which corresponded to him.
It isn't false modesty when I say this, but although I am supposed to be a famous person it doesn't mean anything to me. I just sit at home and work.
My grandfather was not a musician but he was an artist - a painter, a decorative painter.
I write bars, for the musicians, because they have to be together.
Yes, fractals are what I want to find in my music.
Stravinsky used Mother Goose. He was influenced by Mother Goose, indirectly, but very beautifully.
I know already the music I will write. But the words? I have not yet decided.
If you come from Paris to Budapest you think you are in Moscow.
But if you go from Moscow to Budapest you think you are in Paris.
I lived under the Nazis and under the Communists.
But I do not want to use Hungarian verses for British people.
People often thought Leopold Auer was Russian because he lived in St. Petersburg so long, almost fifty years.
First of all I listen to music. I like music.
In my piano concerto I developed this polyphony to much higher complexity.
I only want to give a metaphysic for my music.
For the past ten years I have had no financial problems.
When I was younger I was completely without money - when I was studying in Budapest, when I was a refugee.
I don't use old music.
Then, after the war it was impossible to travel, after so many years of Hitler and Stalin.
I listen to all kinds of music - new music, old music, music of my colleagues, everything.
