Esa-Pekka Salonen quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Esa-Pekka Salonen

Esa-Pekka Salonen Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Esa-Pekka Salonen on Wise Famous Quotes.

If I were in a position to announce a public competition to coin a new word, I would do so right now.

There is such a suspicion in today's world of people who do more than one thing, who aren't specialized.

I always had, deep down, a slight aversion toward the purely cerebral in music.

I'm still disturbed if a chord isn't together, but your priorities change as you get older.

With American orchestras, in particular, because they play in such huge halls, getting a true pianissimo is very hard.

Our audience, it has been a more difficult process for classical music audiences around the world, and I'm not completely certain why.

This conducting thing happened. In 1983 I was sucked into this international career, which was a very scary experience.

When an artist works today or whenever, it's not about creating immortal masterpieces, because that's the one thing we don't decide ourselves.

My music wouldn't sound the way it does if I hadn't had the experience of conducting.

Stravinsky is masterly: his harmony is conceived so precisely that it can only be the way it is.

I think we are in the process of getting the word out, and we haven't done very well yet. But we are trying.

Every day we make more progress toward understanding the concert hall.

I realized that the European dogma is not necessarily the only way to look at things.

Los Angeles is just a more open place. The way L.A. functions is that people give you a forum. They say, Show us what you can do.

I feel very free and very happy to be a composer.

When we're at the end of The Rite of Spring or of a Bruckner symphony, I want people to feel the music physically.

There will have to be times when I'm not conducting because I'm composing. I haven't solved that problem, and perhaps I never will.

I think if you would like to describe composing as an act with one word, "slow" would be the word.

The music I turn out these days is the kind of music I want to hear myself.

The philharmonic became such a journey and adventure in my life, and a deeply satisfying thing.

I started conducting lessons and I realized that this is actually something I like doing.

In the range of music that we play - roughly 300 years' worth-there really are more similarities than differences.

Somehow, conductor as this superhuman conduit between the masters and the masterpieces and the immortals.

Anyone who composes and conducts at the same time is immediately suspect, because he must be faking one or the other.

There's so much energy exchange [in conduction], so you get back a lot, of course, but you also have to give a lot. It's kind of high-energy thing.

I've learned a lot from the masters of orchestration, like Ravel and Stravinsky.

Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity.

The sort of commercial parameters of classical music changed after the [World War II] , and the whole industry became more backward-looking.

Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that.

I'm composing more than before. I'm cutting down on conducting.

After 30 years I have realized the greatest pleasure I can get is to have learnt.

In Europe, there is so much tradition, and everyone has established ideas as to what art should be and what it has always been.

As we watch TV or films, there are no organic transitions, only edits. The idea of A becoming B, rather than A jumping to B, has become foreign.

This country, and the West Coast, especially, is bad at preserving any cultural legacy.

After working with Ligeti I began to hear Brahms and Beethoven differently.

Conducting was just something that happened by fluke.

I love a visceral sound, the kind that hits you in the belly.

Music has just as much to do with movement and body as it does soul and intellect.

Our industry [classic music] has kind of retarded into this kind of endless cover-producing thing, and it's a pity.

The Royal Festival Hall in London is nice; people hang out there. I think this inviting, non-exclusive character is very important.

Once you get over the first hill, there is always a new, higher one lurking, of course.

I can't imagine how many first performances I've done, perhaps 500. Some of them have been very good, and some of course very bad.

I actually don't like this term, "classic." It's wrong, but we don't have a better word at the moment.