Why do people compose music? Why do people listen to music? When we go into a concert, we go into a place where we want to experience a sort of ecstasy, to come out of ourselves.
The 'Missa Mirabilis' is a big work which was conceived for a large organ and a lot of singers.
Musicians keep playing when the lights go out, when people are suffering, confused, or angry.
Classical music thinks in centuries, not four-year terms.
One of the things that touches me most when I play for an audience is that although we may be unable to communicate in words or have diametrically opposed views on hot-button issues, while the music sounds we can be at peace, we can be friends. The vibrations that fill an auditorium have no passports, and they unite ears when hearts may be divided.
In Britten or Berg, there's a tension between the sweet and the sour, between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the tonal and the atonal, the happy and the sad. That, to me, is what all western art is about - that tension. It's why we want to say anything at all.
Freedom comes with the impossibility of choosing.
Bach and Beethoven erected temples and churches on the heights. I only wanted to build dwellings for men in which they might feel happy and at home.
The Internet tempts us to think that because an email or a new website can be accessed in seconds that everything works at the same instant speed. Art is more like the growth of a plant. It needs time and space.
I remember, in school during English lessons, I would ask the teacher what were the most difficult books to read, and when she'd say 'Ulysses' or something, I'd run off to the library to check out a copy, eager to attempt the most difficult mountain.
I don't watch television! At least not when I'm traveling. For some reason, I have always found it depressing to watch television in hotel rooms. I try to use that time, as well as time on planes, to write.
The things I do outside of playing the piano are done out of an inner necessity, not just because I want to try my hand at different things.
In school, my favourite class was when we were given a subject for an essay on which we could freewheel. And poetry: I've always written it and loved the way words interact, in meaning and in sound.
There must be so many people who have various artistic talents that, for whatever reason, just have no way of expressing them. Either they have no support from their family or they live in a part of the world, maybe they've never heard a piano or seen a piano.
I was very quick; I did nothing but play the piano apart from being at school. I was at home with my mother, saying, 'Go out and get some fresh air.' No, I wanted to play the piano all the time I could. I was completely obsessed.
I think there are very few people that I would give the title of genius to, really, but Beethoven unquestionably is one of them.
For about four years, all I did was watch television. I suppose my parents should have stopped me.
Most people spend their life trying to get away from Catholicism. Amazingly, I chose it.
I enjoy painting. It's an incredible release of tension, and I feel very excited doing it. I squeeze out some wonderful red paint, and I get a thrill. My heart starts beating faster. It's almost a sensual thing working with these thick acrylic paints. I almost want to put my hands in.
America has been central to my life.
