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

Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning ... except its own.

Success is all very well as long as you don't inhale.

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.

A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.

If you're a good composer, you steal good steals.

Which of my Jewish roots do I follow?