Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity.
New York is really the place to be; to go to New York, you're going to the center of the world, the lion's den.
Music is a lens through which to see who we are. Every phrase of every piece of music is trying to tell a story.
Liverpool is off the side of the known universe, and it always was. New York is the only other place comparable.
I can't even touch another conductor's baton. The center of gravity, the feel of the handle, puts me totally off.
'Parsifal' is one of the great examples in art of a work that transcends the personality of the man who wrote it.
As a Liverpool boy, it is impossible not to think of the Beatles' question, 'Will you still need me when I'm 64?'
In the range of music that we play - roughly 300 years' worth-there really are more similarities than differences.
When we're at the end of The Rite of Spring or of a Bruckner symphony, I want people to feel the music physically.
Everyone says you have to be a specialist, and if you conduct Wagner you cannot conduct Mozart - this is nonsense.
It is simple nonsense to speak of the fixed tempo of any particular vocal phrase. Each voice has its peculiarities.
Our industry [classic music] has kind of retarded into this kind of endless cover-producing thing, and it's a pity.
If people had told me that I would have the stamina to conduct 'Ring Cycles,' I would have been amazed. I still am.
Growing up in Hollywood, like I did, I have a passion and a love for the movies, so I go to the cinema all the time.
It's hard to find an emblem of cultural, national pride that burns as bright as Israel's success in classical music.
I miss the standard of the New York Philharmonic's playing very much. It has certainly been a high point in my life.
I never use a score when conducting my orchestra... Does a lion tamer enter a cage with a book on how to tame a lion?
Anyone who composes and conducts at the same time is immediately suspect, because he must be faking one or the other.
At best, most college presidents are running something that is somewhere between a faltering corporation and a hotel.
The jazz records come out a lot. You find that with many musicians - we don't listen to our own music for relaxation.
We cannot expect you to be with us all the time, but perhaps you could be good enough to keep in touch now and again.
With American orchestras, in particular, because they play in such huge halls, getting a true pianissimo is very hard.
I was a harpsichordist in my teens, and there was a bunch of us in Liverpool who got together every week to play Bach.
I am always hearing from Israelis, 'Oh, CNN is anti-Israel,' or 'BBC is against us.' But no, they are reporting facts.
This conducting thing happened. In 1983 I was sucked into this international career, which was a very scary experience.
But the important thing is to lie down and fall asleep. That little nap means you wake up fresh again and can continue.
The role of an orchestra in the 21st century isn't just playing, it's about developing future audiences and performers.
It is the tuning of the universe... It's as if at the beginning of the symphony God turns up the volume just a tiny bit.
I spend so much of my time working away, but I love being here. My family is in Somerset, and this is where my heart is.
If you're curious, if you have a capacity for wonder, if you're alive, you know all that you need to know [about music].
Conductors make too much fuss about conductors! Humility and hard work are virtues. We're nothing without our musicians.
You don't like Liverpool: you either loathe it or you love it. And I don't know anyone who loathes it and comes from it.
For too long, musicians have been the greatest enemy of music. Their lack of desire to proselytize is a kind of betrayal.
It's not that people don't like classical music. It's that they don't have the chance to understand and to experience it.
Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands and all you can do is scratch it.
I'd like to explode a few myths about what we call classical music. It's not high art for the titillation of a chosen few.
I had a sense of debt to the medical profession and to surgery particularly. I would not be as ambient as I am without it.
If a young man at the age of twenty-three can write a symphony like that, in five years he will be ready to commit murder.
It will be a great day when taxpayers keep the money they earned and DC has to hold a bake sale to to raise the debt limit.
Apparently, I'm supposed to be more angry about what Mitt Romney does with his money than what Barack Obama does with mine.
As a conductor I find the hardest tasks are to listen to the instinct of a musician and to hear the music behind the notes.
If anyone has conducted a Beethoven performance, and then doesn't have to go to an osteopath, then there's something wrong.
When asked whether he minded if someone smoked in a non-smoking compartment. Certainly not if you don't object if I'm sick.
Everybody should have his personal sounds to listen for - sounds that will make him exhilarated and alive or quiet and calm.
The conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful.
By concentrating on precision, one arrives at technique, but by concentrating on technique one does not arrive at precision.
Whenever I listen to a children's orchestra, I learn. They feel everything, they enjoy everything, they have amazing energy.
There is no 'perfect' in music. If I ever came off the stage and felt it could not be better, it would then be time to quit.
Though there is such a rich tradition of culture and arts, I have never been invited to perform at a concert in South India.
In truth, I became a conductor because deep down I wanted to conduct Brahmss four symphonies and Richard Strausss tone poems.