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" Conductors make too much fuss about conductors! Humility and hard work are virtues. We're nothing without our musicians. "

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" If you receive a whole string of bad reviews, you have to say, 'O.K., maybe there's something here we should pay attention to.' "

" I've always had a profound conviction that great music is about joy, even in the face of tragedy. "

" The music lovers of London and the country deserve to have something where orchestras can flourish. You have no idea how wonderful an orchestra like the London Symphony Orchestra can sound in a great concert hall. "

" Liverpool is off the side of the known universe, and it always was. New York is the only other place comparable. "

" The jazz records come out a lot. You find that with many musicians - we don't listen to our own music for relaxation. "

" Every orchestra has its own sound. "

" The necessity for rules and strictness is a way of dealing with an enormously powerful impulse: Germans are among the most emotional people on the planet. Maybe it has to do with the fact that, as a nation, they are always drawn back to nature and the forest. "

" There is a mysterious way in which orchestras keep a sense of their history and what they've done. I still listen to the L.A. Philharmonic and feel that Giulini was there. "

" I've always loved French music. My parents adored it; my father played it on the piano. "

" If you think the music business is the be-all and end-all of life, you're in big trouble. "

" I first heard Mahler's second symphony aged 11 in Liverpool, and it inspired me to become a conductor. "

" One of the most difficult things in opera is for people to suspend disbelief. "

Difficult Things

" 'Pelleas et Melisande' is one of the saddest and most upsetting operas ever written. If you love the opera as I do, then you love it to pieces, obsessively. "

" I believe if you're not completely in love with what you're doing, you'd better find another profession. "

" I think the English are an unbelievably musical nation and always have been. "

" Beethoven was always too much. He's not slightly anything - he's very everything. "

" I'd be much more likely to watch the latest Tarantino movie than to listen to a Mahler symphony. "

" It's interesting: composers can be very funny ducks. "

" We have to be evangelists for music. We couldn't just be high priests of music. "

" Conductors start getting good when everybody else retires. "

" 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. "

" There are a few great orchestras in the world, thank goodness. Although some people do put them in ranking order, it's not like a snooker match. Each orchestra has different things to offer. "

" You would never train people to play football by telling them to watch football. You make them play football. "

" American economists can't understand the German fear of inflation and the effects of inflation when dealing with the world economic crisis. They wonder why Germany pursues such a different course - 'Why can't they agree with us?' I would have thought it was fairly obvious. "

" With these big Wagner pieces, if I haven't started three years before, I'm screwed. You need time to look at the piece again and again and again, and then, like some fantastic casserole or spaghetti sauce, put it back in the fridge and let the flavours get together. "

" My only interest is in sharing great music with more and more people. "

" I love Mozart, but I often make a terrible hash of it. "

" I am old enough to remember the enormous fight over Tate Modern. It is such a part of our cultural landscape now, we forget the opposition to it. "

" In England, unless I am mistaken, I think some of the politicians who love classical music and opera are a bit loath to be seen there in case people think it is elitist. That is a real shame because it also means we are not allowing our politicians a hinterland that an earlier generation, a Denis Healey, would have taken for granted. "

" The grapevine in England is an extraordinary thing. When there is a really brilliant young composer or soloist, we all hear about it. "