Unfortunately, it happens all too seldom that you really disappear behind a work, that you are no longer audible as an interpreter.

Admittedly, it is really our duty, as artists, to hold up a mirror to our own era; but, on the other hand, these works have lives of their own, and they're still alive today.

The reason why Schubert is celebrated so much today, lies rather in the fact that there has been nobody else like him - not before him, not after him.

The composition of a single melody is born out of a bit of text, perhaps the first line, but it can also be the entire strophe; it can even be the poem's overall form.

What concerns me, is the general social tendency to enforce a level, above which nothing rises and stands out.

All music has to speak in some form or other.

Anyone who draws attention to himself as an individual, is viewed with suspicion. We acquired this tendency, of course, from America, and we must resist it: levelling, and imitation of what others are already doing.