of his own music catán said, "i have inherited a very rich operatic tradition. in my work, i am proud to say, one can detect the enormous debt i owe to composers from monteverdi to alban berg. but perhaps the greatest of my debts is having learnt that the originality of an opera need not involve the rejection of our tradition—which would be like blindly embracing the condition of an orphan—but rather the profound assimilation of it, so as to achieve the closest union between a text and its music." catán also cited in many interviews igor stravinsky, maurice ravel, and erich wolfgang korngold among those who had most influenced his music and compositional style.