For many people, music is here to let them forget the daily chores of life.
Tradition demands that we not speak poorly of the dead.
Now the first step has to be taken, the step towards democracy. This step is full of risks, and requires trust on all sides. We don't know where it will lead. But if we just stand still, we will have no chance of escaping the violence.
It is always interesting and sometimes even important to have intimate knowledge of a composer's life, but it is not essential in order to understand the composer's works.
When playing music, it is possible to achieve a unique sense of peace.
You used to queue for three days and two nights for tickets for Rubinstein. People stayed in the queue for the whole day.
The Iranian government still denies the Holocaust - so you can't take them seriously. And the Israeli government spreads rumours and disinformation about Iran - because it needs to for the creation of panic. I find these theological states - and in this respect, Israel and Iran are twin brothers - very, very dangerous.
I have loved Elliott Carter's music for many years.
When you get to be 103, modernism is a very wide concept.
The problem with listening to music today is that there's so much of it everywhere. We've got used to hearing music without actually listening to it.
Controversial means somebody who makes people think. And if you are afraid of people who will be against you, you might as well stay home and do nothing.
I cannot be music director at La Scala and at Staatsoper. This would be unfair to one of the two institutions.
I used to conduct the last opera in Berlin on Sunday, get on a plane on Monday to Chicago, and start a rehearsal that same night, if it was a performance week.
To play four hands requires two people who have great affinity for each other.
When I played my first concert with an orchestra, I was eight years old in Berlin.
I have accumulated so many experiences, so much, that I want to be able to realize so many things. This is why I have basically given up most of my positions.
I am the conductor for life of the Staatskapelle in Berlin, which fills me with tremendous joy because I feel absolutely at one with them. When we play, I have a feeling that together we manage to create one collective lung for the whole orchestra so that everybody in the stage breathes the music in the same way.
Most of the time I spend looking for the 25th hour in the day, the ninth day in the week, the 32nd day in the month and the 367th, eighth or 70th day in the year because I feel I have a very rich life.
I am permanently relaxed.
I don't believe in changing the unchangeable.
