Stravinsky is masterly: his harmony is conceived so precisely that it can only be the way it is.

If you think of the history, in the days of Brahms and Beethoven and all these guys, almost every concert was a new music concert. To play something old was really an exception.

In the range of music that we play - roughly 300 years' worth-there really are more similarities than differences.

Every day we make more progress toward understanding the concert hall.

I can't imagine how many first performances I've done, perhaps 500. Some of them have been very good, and some of course very bad.

Once you get over the first hill, there is always a new, higher one lurking, of course.

Somehow, conductor as this superhuman conduit between the masters and the masterpieces and the immortals.