The generation of composers that are just preceded me, people like [Karlheinz] Stockhausen, [Pierre] Boulez, and, well, [John] Cage for that matter,[Morton] Feldman. . . That was a kind of experimental music that was very isolated. It had no real public.
Contrary to general belief, I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best, they are merely the people who got there first.