“The thing about composing, nobody can tell — even Beethoven couldn’t tell until he had composed quite a bit of music and it got better and better — the degree of talent. You can’t get up one day [and say], ‘I’m going to be talented today and write a great piece.’ The only thing you can do is start composing and work your buns off working on it and studying the great music of the past and learning from it and then try to create sort of your own language.”