The blues are like the fugue in 18th century. It's probably the music that belongs most to our time.

Conductors don't suffer, they are part of the performance.

Beethoven suppressed everything, his personal life disappeared until he was locked inside. That is a figure quite extreme.

I've seldom become nostalgic or settled.

I'm outside the music I've made. I have no interest in it.

Poetry is fascinating. As soon as it begins the poetry has changed the thing into something extra, and somehow prose can go over into poetry.

Shakespeare fascinated me. He hardly ever left the country. His imagination was worldwide though reading.