Life without music is meaningless, music without life is academic.
When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer.
I hate you, Richard Wagner . . . but I hate you on my knees.
When the study of the arts leads to the adoration of the formula (heaven forbid), we shall be lost.
The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial.
Mozart combines serenity, melancholy, and tragic intensity into one great lyric improvisation. Over it all hovers the greater spirit that is Mozart's - the spirit of compassion, of universal love, even of suffering - a spirit that knows no age, that belongs to all ages.