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

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" Orchestras are like people. They're the sonic embodiment of their community. "

" The better the orchestra, often the harder it is to conduct, not the other way around. "

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

" My worst and best qualities are rashness: the good part of it is due to youth, which is, of course, why I'm not a great conductor. "

" Conductors start getting good when everybody else retires. "

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

" Germans have an understanding of history and cannot allow themselves to forget it. It may be a curse, but in some ways, it's a blessing. It makes them cautious. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Oh Lord... I don't really do pride. "

" We need to bring music to the people, even to those who normally do not listen to classical music. "

" As a Liverpool boy, it is impossible not to think of the Beatles' question, 'Will you still need me when I'm 64?' "

" Passionate musicians only come from passionate five-year-olds. "

" What really counts isn't whether your instrument is Baroque or modern: it's your mindset. "

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

Difficult Things

" Every orchestra has its own sound. "

" I think Beethoven means dissonances to be more stressed than consonances - it's the shock tactician in him. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Nobody has Francis Bacon on their walls in their house - or very few people - but sometimes people listen to Beethoven as though it was background and a comfort, and I think that is very dangerous. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" As a nation, we English tend to be self-deprecating, looking down on ourselves. We're insular but also flexible, whereas in Germany, it's a case of besser wissen - we know better. That's very Deutsch. People are never frightened to tell you what you're doing wrong, in a way that would never happen in England. "

" 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. "

" In my mid-twenties, I was with a conducting career, but I had never been to university and I wanted to. There were things I wanted to study in depth. I also wanted to see if I could survive without music. "

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