If somebody had told me when I was starting composition in Helsinki in the '70s that I would end up in L.A. and to describe that journey, those 17 years with the philharmonic and building the hall and this and that, I would have said, "This is a fairy tale of the first order."
Esa-Pekka SalonenWith American orchestras, in particular, because they play in such huge halls, getting a true pianissimo is very hard.
Esa-Pekka SalonenI think truth as an idea should be left to the philosophers and perhaps religious leaders and politicians, and professional people who deal with that idea.
Esa-Pekka SalonenComing from a sort of very rigid European type of training to this culture which is just a little more open - a lot more open, and kind of curious, and asking different sorts of questions.Because the problem for me was that the European modernist movement in the '70s was all about right or wrong. Some things were right and you were dealing with the truth, as it were, and then some things were wrong and therefore not allowed.
Esa-Pekka Salonen