Which of my Jewish roots do I follow?

You can sit there, tense and worried, freezing the creative energies, or you can start writing something. It doesn't matter what. In five or ten minutes, the imagination will heat, the tightness will fade, and a certain spirit and rhythm will take over.

Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.

Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.

It is hard to think of another composer who so perfectly marries form and passion.

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another... and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.

I hate you, Richard Wagner . . . but I hate you on my knees.