Everyone is different. Sometimes it's very exciting; sometimes very scary.

Mozart often wrote to his family that certain variations or sections of pieces were so successful that they had to be encored immediately, even without waiting for the entire piece to end.

It is wonderful to see how happy all my friends in the LA Philharmonic are in their new home.

If there were no rules about when to applaud, we in the audience would have the right response almost always.

I think competition in any kind of activity like music, art, literature - anything that's not done with a timer - is actually impossible. So, in effect, what you're doing is you're entering the lottery. You're hoping that you play well (and that) you play your best on the day that you're heard, and you're hoping that the people who are judging will like what you do.

Applause should be an emotional response to the music, rather than a regulated social duty.

I have been trying to find out exactly when listeners and performers decided that applause between movements would not be allowed, but nobody seems to have been willing to admit that they were the culprit.