I have a theory that there is something abnormal about children who like to practice instruments They are either geniuses or, more often, completely untalented. I certainly did not like to practice, and the teacher who hit me, and the view of the park, did not help to improve my attitude.

Everyone says you have to be a specialist, and if you conduct Wagner you cannot conduct Mozart - this is nonsense.

From Toscanini I learnt the essential and desperate seriousness of making music.

I was born and trained to communicate music, just as the sons were born and trained to hunt, and I was lucky to have grown up in Hungary, a country that lives and breathes music-that has a passionate belief in the power of music as a celebration of life.

The academy gave me a grounding in discipline and hard work that has sustained me throughout my life, and the lessons I learned there I now try to impress on young people.

Fight the tendency to become complacent and do one kind of music - that is the death of a musician.

During the first six years of my life, Hungary was one of the most important components of the Habsburg dynasty's vast Austro-Hungarian Empire, but after World War I it became an independent national entity.