Many people learn how to talk, but they don't learn how to listen. Listening to one another is an important thing in life. And music tells us how to do that.
Claudio AbbadoI love the sound of snow... You can hear it even if you are only standing on a balcony. [The sound] is only minimal, not even a real noise: a breath, a trifle of a sound. You have the same thing in music: if in the score there is a pianissimo marked that ends in nothing. Up thee you can feel this 'nothing'. With an orchestra it is very difficult to achieve it. The Berlin Philharmonic manage it sometimes.
Claudio Abbado