It is always interesting and sometimes even important to have intimate knowledge of a composer's life, but it is not essential in order to understand the composer's works.

To have real knowledge, one must understand the essence of things and not only their manifestations.

Music means different things to different people and sometimes even different things to the same person at different moments of his life.

I think the most important thing for a listener is to realize that he, too, should not listen to music in a passive way; that if you sit in a concert hall and expect to be moved or taken off your seat by the music, it will not happen.

You can't expect someone born into a family with no music... to understand when I'm conducting the Schoenberg Variations.

The tempo is the suitcase. If the suitcase is too small, everything is completely wrinkled. If the tempo is too fast, everything becomes so scrambled you can't understand it.