Esa-Pekka Salonen quotes

Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity. (Esa-Pekka Salonen)
Every day we make more progress toward understanding the concert hall. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Music has just as much to do with movement and body as it does soul and intellect. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
In the range of music that we play - roughly 300 years' worth-there really are more similarities than differences. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Anyone who composes and conducts at the same time is immediately suspect, because he must be faking one or the other. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
The act of conducting in itself, of waving my arms in the air and being in charge, I didn't miss. I missed the sensual pleasure of being in contact with music. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Stravinsky is masterly: his harmony is conceived so precisely that it can only be the way it is. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
My music wouldn't sound the way it does if I hadn't had the experience of conducting. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Once you get over the first hill, there is always a new, higher one lurking, of course. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
The Royal Festival Hall in London is nice; people hang out there. I think this inviting, non-exclusive character is very important. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
The players never think they project enough. In a hall that seats 3,300 people, it's a very scary thing to play so quietly that you can barely hear yourself. (Esa-Pekka Salonen)
Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
This conducting thing happened. In 1983 I was sucked into this international career, which was a very scary experience. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
This country, and the West Coast, especially, is bad at preserving any cultural legacy. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
The Northern idea of form is more of a process. The various units of the form overlap. You can't tell where some things stop and new things start. This is typical of Sibelius. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
As we watch TV or films, there are no organic transitions, only edits. The idea of A becoming B, rather than A jumping to B, has become foreign. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
I always had, deep down, a slight aversion toward the purely cerebral in music. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
I can't imagine how many first performances I've done, perhaps 500. Some of them have been very good, and some of course very bad. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
I discovered that the people of the North are different and there's no way you can make a person from the North similar to a Southerner. They're two different worlds. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
There will have to be times when I'm not conducting because I'm composing. I haven't solved that problem, and perhaps I never will. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
I feel very free and very happy to be a composer. (Esa-Pekka Salonen)
I love a visceral sound, the kind that hits you in the belly. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Los Angeles is just a more open place. The way L.A. functions is that people give you a forum. They say, Show us what you can do. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
In Europe, there is so much tradition, and everyone has established ideas as to what art should be and what it has always been. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen
I've learned a lot from the masters of orchestration, like Ravel and Stravinsky. View quote
Esa-Pekka Salonen