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" 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. "

Simon Rattle

Done

Feel

History

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Simon Rattle

Think

Need

" 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. "

" Always the journey, never the destination. "

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

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

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

Simon Rattle

Stressed

Than

" '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. "

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

Simon Rattle

Really

Pride

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" Conductors start getting good when everybody else retires. "

" Every orchestra has its own sound. "

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

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

Simon Rattle

Community

People

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

Simon Rattle

Symphony

Watch

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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