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.

And in English you have this wonderful difference between listening and hearing, and that you can hear without listening, and you can listen and not hear.

US presidents can make all the commitments and declarations they want until they are blue in the face, in the Muslim world they will always be perceived as partisan.

Every great work of art has two faces, one towards its own time and one towards future, towards eternity.

The Steinway piano is such an incomparable instrument. Due to its virtues, I am able to express all my musical feelings.

There are many types of silence. There is a silence before the note, there is a silence at the end and there is a silence in the middle.

In times of totalitarian or autocratic rule, music (indeed culture in general) is often the only avenue of independent thought. It is the only way people can meet as equals, and exchange ideas. Culture then becomes primarily the voice of the oppressed and it takes over from politics as a driving force for change.