European anti-Semitism goes much further back than to the partition of Palestine and the establishment of Israel in 1948. It even goes further back than the Holocaust.

I can't stand being in Chicago anymore and hearing the Brahms Violin Concerto in the elevator. Because that shows me that when they come to the concert hall they listen to it in the same way.

I don't believe that the entire world is constantly anti-Semitic.

I have the greatest respect for the survivors of the Holocaust. We can't even imagine what these people went through.

Today, conducting is a question of ego: a lot of people believe they are actually playing the music.

Music means different things to different people and sometimes even different things to the same person at different moments of his life.

If a man dreams about sleeping with Marilyn Monroe, he's certainly entitled to that. But when he wakes up, he has to acknowledge that he is married to someone else.