Esa-Pekka Salonen

“There is such a suspicion in today's world of people who do more than one thing, who aren't specialized.”

“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.”

“My music wouldn't sound the way it does if I hadn't had the experience of conducting.”

“If the seams are showing, there is something wrong with the performance or the construction of the piece. This idea is completely at odds with our modern visual experience, because everything today is based on montage.”

“There is more openness in LA to possibilities than on the East Coast of America. There is a pioneering spirit there that stems from the reason people went out there in the first place-to find something new.”

“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.”

“This continuity of sound and form was something that I became really interested in from working with Ligeti. He was always going on about how form has to be continuous.”

“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.”

“This country, and the West Coast, especially, is bad at preserving any cultural legacy.”

“I love a visceral sound, the kind that hits you in the belly.”

“Every day we make more progress toward understanding the concert hall.”

“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.”

“Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity.”

“I always had, deep down, a slight aversion toward the purely cerebral in music.”

“When we're at the end of The Rite of Spring or of a Bruckner symphony, I want people to feel the music physically.”

“The underlying process in Northern music tends to be slower and continuous, whatever's happening on the surface; in Southern music the underlying process is always faster.”

“I feel very free and very happy to be a composer.”