With American orchestras, in particular, because they play in such huge halls, getting a true pianissimo is very hard.

The philharmonic became such a journey and adventure in my life, and a deeply satisfying thing.

You know, in some ways conducting is counter-intuitive. It's like winter driving in Finland - if you skid, the natural reaction is to fight with the wheel and jam on the brakes, which is the quickest way to get killed. What you have to do is let go, and the car will right itself. It's the same when an orchestra loses its ensemble. You have to resist the temptation to semaphore, and let the orchestra find its own way back to the pulse.

If I were in a position to announce a public competition to coin a new word, I would do so right now.

The Royal Festival Hall in London is nice; people hang out there. I think this inviting, non-exclusive character is very important.

Coming 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.

I actually don't like this term, "classic." It's wrong, but we don't have a better word at the moment.