Leo Ornstein

The danger of that - and there's a grave danger that I, myself, have to be very aware of - is that…

— Leo Ornstein

We can use techniques in modifying things, in controlling things, but the first impulse has to be something that you simply cannot…

— Leo Ornstein

A person improvising is sometimes very fortunate that just at that second things coincide.

— Leo Ornstein

Because essentially Schoenberg was an extremely gifted man. And in spite of many of his theories and so on, when he really…

— Leo Ornstein

To the person that deals in visualizations, I suppose there is something rather exciting about a whole set of people - they…

— Leo Ornstein

You write it down because finally, when it's written down you do get it out of your system somewhat.

— Leo Ornstein

By the visual pattern, but mostly I'm guided entirely by my ear, what I hear.

— Leo Ornstein

It doesn't necessarily mean at all that the composer plays his own works best.

— Leo Ornstein

By the way, the point between rationality and what we would call the irrational is a very difficult point to establish. There’s…

— Leo Ornstein

Of all the arts, music is really the most abstract.

— Leo Ornstein

Improvisation is terribly haphazard.

— Leo Ornstein

The difference between the student and the born composer is he really hears the thing, and they have to stage it and…

— Leo Ornstein

There are some people, by the way, that associate a certain amount of visualization with the performance of music. Those are people…

— Leo Ornstein

I think there have been some periods when the writing almost became a bit of a burden.

— Leo Ornstein

In writing music, the structure of each piece is a very important factor.

— Leo Ornstein

Today, with a recording, he can hear the thing enough times until he really gets acquainted with the language, and then he…

— Leo Ornstein

Today each composer is not only involved in aesthetics, but he's actually trying to create his own language.

— Leo Ornstein

Now, what we are not talking about, what you're really coming to, is what compromises one makes so that the listener understands…

— Leo Ornstein

I'm really interested in writing a piece of music that will move you, that will really move you. That is really the…

— Leo Ornstein

Besides merely some pleasure that we get out of the combinations of pitches together and lines, I think that there is some…

— Leo Ornstein

Well, no. I believe that it's not at all impossible that some of the performances that I've heard so far by some…

— Leo Ornstein

No, I think that a person writes a poem because they have an inner urge of something that they want to express,…

— Leo Ornstein

“I would say that Op 31 had brought music just to the very edge … I just simply drew back and said,…

— Leo Ornstein

I think recordings have been a terrific advance because now, when you have a piece of music, particularly something that appears to…

— Leo Ornstein

Hopefully, I have a certain amount of what you call musical talent.

— Leo Ornstein