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

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" One of the most extraordinary and all-encompassing forms of communication is music. It reaches places that all kinds of other things cannot reach. I'll put my cards on the table: I think it is our greatest language. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" As an older dad you can certainly get down on the floor. The problem is can you get up again? "

" 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. "

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

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

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

" Sometimes, musicians worry too much about how beautifully they are playing. "

" 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. "

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

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

" Conducting 'Tristan' is like floating in amniotic fluid, but having worked on it for three months, I now know why people who go near it go so strange. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

" '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. "

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

Difficult Things

" 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. "

" Every orchestra has its own sound. "

" Conductors start getting good when everybody else retires. "

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

" 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. "

" Learning music is a birthright. And you have to start young. "