I just wish, maybe, that I'd started conducting earlier. I was about 40 when I started. Apart from that I don't really have any regrets. Is that bad?
Most Beethoven symphonies require 80 or more instruments, and the late romantics even more.
Initially we performed in halls with capacities of 1,000.
If the (British) Arts Council give you money, they also tell you how to spend it.
We don't want other people poking into our artistic pie.
The awful thing about a conductor becoming geriatric is that you seem to become more desirable, not less.