Symphony Quotes

The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

The Russian composers, especially, tricked the symphony orchestra into the kind of dynamic, rhythmic thing.

Whenever I heard the song of a bird and the answering call of its mate, I could visualize the notes in scale, all built up within my consciousness as a natural symphony.

It feels like my job is to support people. I support great artists. When I worked with a symphony, I sat in the third chair, not the first chair.

But some people will say you just did these programs. Well, yes, the programs are important and I'm proud of the programs, but mostly I'm proud of the way the San Francisco Symphony plays these programs.

Although, I am proud of all my Symphonies as they all have something special to say, my particular favourite is the Fifth. As the great Mahler expert Donald Mitchell said that if Mahler had written another Symphony, it would have been my Fifth!

You can't play a symphony alone, it takes an orchestra to play it.

In South America, I heard the 8th Symphony of Beethoven. And the young conductor thought, Beethoven must be heroic. But this is piece which shouldn't be heroic. And this was such a misunderstanding, such a deep misunderstanding.

When I was to come to Washington the first time as Music Director of the Boston Symphony, Mrs. Johnson phoned us to find out if they could give us a party and who we would like to meet.

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man.

If a professional musician in a symphony orchestra is playing Beethoven. But this particular orchestra have played this particular chestnut so many times, they can play it in their sleep. Does the genius remain present in the music or not?

I grew up a Red Sox fan. I grew up going to Fenway Park and the Museum of Fine Arts and the Science Museum and Symphony Hall and going to the Common, walking around. My whole family at different times lived and worked in Boston.

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

I don't see myself necessarily having a burning desire to write a symphony.

We did experiments with the Boston Symphony for many years where we measured the angles of incidence of sound arriving at the ears of the audience, then took the measurements back to MIT and analyzed them.

The first reason for starting to do the symphony concerts was to play this new piece of mine.

I think there's a poet who wrote once a tragedy by Shakespeare, a symphony by Beethoven and a thunderstorm are based on the same elements. I think that's a beautiful line.