When you go out onto the stage, all the preparation has to be forced into your subconscious. For the moment of the performance, we all have to return to a new level of unconsciousness. All the reflection and all the doubts have to be laid aside before you start.

I came together with younger musicians and tried to pass on my own experiences. In the process, I always tried to maintain my curiosity and spontaneity.

And what unity is to be had, at a time when orchestras are dying out, and when opera houses are about to close their doors; what's going to come next - when nothing new in music, for the orchestra, is truly lasting: pieces are performed once, and then they're thrown away.

All music has to speak in some form or other.

Toward the end of his life, one can sense that he was no longer thinking his way into the minds of others, causing them to speak on his behalf, but that he was now speaking for himself.

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.

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