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

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" '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 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I was thrilled that Sadiq Khan was so in support of the idea of culture being at the centre of a city and the idea that it is everyone's right. It can't be a matter of privilege or chance. It should be something everyone can have in their life, and that means knowing what it is. "

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

" Yes, I was a weird duck, no doubt. "

" Always the journey, never the destination. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

" I was a harpsichordist in my teens, and there was a bunch of us in Liverpool who got together every week to play Bach. "

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

" I think we will find more and more ways in which technology invades our artistic spaces, so music is something you will need more than ever because it is there in time and in space and for that moment only. "

" Some of my favorite music in the world is Haydn. I had a sabbatical one year and made myself one promise: to play a different Haydn piano sonata each day - they are inexhaustible treasures. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

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