Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Some people will always gossip.
To play opera, to play Wagner, it's a great joy.
I'm very proud of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
I really think that the music is the food for our souls.
When you have a great car, you want people to see the car.
You don't have to make a grand, exaggerated sound to sing opera.
It's so important which musicians we choose for being in the orchestra.
I think that, as a person, Beethoven talks to everyone in different ways.
Music is a universal thing with no boundaries, whether you play inside or outside.
When the oldest surviving record company goes all in on a conductor, everyone notices.
Every week we have a concert, what we are performing is my favorite music in the world.
Anyone who loves football can also be involved in music; the two aren't mutually exclusive.
I think it's very important to be part of the Boston society and the people who live in Boston.
I feel too young in 2018 to take over the Berlin Philharmonic as the successor to Simon Rattle.
I want to take the great tradition of the orchestra within me, to take what the orchestra offers.
Conducting is about communication. You don't play any notes, but you communicate with the musicians.
You have a great result if the orchestra trusts the conductor, and the conductor trusts the orchestra.
I can't say I'd like to concentrate on one particular composer. I'm looking forward to doing a variety.
As a trumpet player, I was playing Xenakis, Lindberg: very challenging, technical, atonal, and I enjoyed it.
It's a dream to be its conductor. Sometimes I think, 'My God, I can't believe it.' It's a dream which came true.
I'm sure the atmosphere at Tanglewood and the space there and nature - I think it absolutely fits Wagner's music.
AWe musicians can influence, and are responsible to influence, human hearts when we perform. We have to touch them.
I think first thing and the most important thing, for me, is that Boston becomes my musical home, my musical family.
If we want to share the message of the composers, to give good things back to humanity, we have to dig deep while we can.
Music is such an important part of society, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra offers such great quality, and we just want to share it.
People talk very much about, 'What can we do with the orchestra in the 21st century?' We should think about the 21st century, of course.
The excitement you can get in classical concert is as big, in a different sense, as you can get when you go to the ice hockey or baseball game.
You must take care of your family, respect the music, and work intensely. Health and family come first, and then you can make much better music.
We can understand each other with music without words - and that's so important in these times when walls are built. In music, there are no walls.
I see, in this life, the hardship many suffer. I see the joy that music can give. How we deal with all this is part of a preparation for the next life.
I'm thankful to Deutsche Grammophon, our partners - we are going to record the complete Shostakovich symphonies and hopefully some other things as well.
Through conducting, you express through your arms, through your face and even the body, what you want to tell, so the musicians of the orchestra understand.
Music is something you can't really put in terms like in a sport, like running or football - that you win if you score more. In music, there's nothing like that.
I always see Beethoven as having been influenced by Haydn. Yet he started a revolution - not just to be different, but also because he lived in a revolutionary era.
It might be expensive to make music lessons available. But it's even more costly to deal with human beings who have half their intellect and spirit left undeveloped.
For me, the main goal is loving music and experiencing the great music-making with the orchestra, which is the great reason why I conduct, and that is the main goal.
All composers who came after were influenced by Beethoven, even during his lifetime, both by his personality and by his music. He was a father figure for generations.
I believe we have a physical body and a soul. It doesn't matter what religion you are, whether or not you believe in God. I think people believe that there is a soul and a body.
I simply love Wagner's music. That actually started very early. He was the first composer I was exposed very much to because my parents introduced me to Wagner's music very early.
You could almost write an opera about the selection of music directors for orchestras. The intrigues are really interesting, and then, at the end, the results are completely unexpected.
The task is to influence and create a reaction in the audience. In my opinion, any reaction of a human being in the audience, I think this is great. It means we touched the person's soul.
The Boston Symphony is one of the best orchestras in the world and has such a great tradition - which I want to cherish, of course, and to learn from and to continue and to add whatever I can add.
Bernstein was everywhere - Vienna, London - and everyone admired him. Of course he loved Boston, and he did so many great things at Tanglewood. He was the best example of what a conductor should be.
The two most important things is, one, the music in my life, and the family. It's somehow connected because music is about human beings, about love, about hate, about everything that happens in life.
I know that Boston is one of the great centers of intellectual culture as well as sport. It's one of the centers of America, with a great orchestra, great sports, great hospitals, and great universities.
Birmingham did a truly remarkable thing in building Symphony Hall, which is the finest concert hall in the U.K. and one of the best in the world. The city has supported music without putting on the brakes.
I'm European, and my roots are in Europe. But Boston is one of the most, in a way, European American cities. And I think I'll find a lot of similarities, historically and architecturally and tradition-wise.
Though involvement in music and the arts can't cure all the ills of society, I do believe that the inspiration they provide has the potential to help us reflect, at times, on the better angels of our natures.
Music is something so mystical, so unexplainably a thing you cannot put in the rules or boundaries, you know? It speaks about our feelings about questions of life and death. It goes absolutely beyond any kind of rules.
All of us in the field must remain constantly vigilant and fight against all types of inappropriate and hurtful behavior and continue the essential work of creating a fair and safe work environment for all classical musicians.