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

Even experimental composers, revolutionary composers, self-styled radicals are, in writing revolutionary music, recognizing the music that preceded them precisely by trying to avoid it.

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

In the olden days, everybody sang. You were expected to sing as well as talk. It was a mark of the cultured man to sing.

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

What [Louis Armstrong] does is real, and true, and honest, and simple, and even noble. Every time this man puts his trumpet to his lips, even if only to practice three notes, he does it with his whole soul.

I'm not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer.