Top 37 Quotes by Esa-Pekka Salonen

Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that.

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

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.

In Europe, there is so much tradition, and everyone has established ideas as to what art should be and what it has always been.

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.

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.

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

In the range of music that we play - roughly 300 years' worth-there really are more similarities than differences.

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

After working with Ligeti I began to hear Brahms and Beethoven differently.