STEPHEN HOUGH

I love listening to things like those wonderful piano pieces of Stockhausen. It's just not my thing as a composer or performer, and thank goodness we're not obliged to be Modernist any more.

I enjoy painting. It's an incredible release of tension, and I feel very excited doing it. I squeeze out some wonderful red paint, and I get a thrill. My heart starts beating faster. It's almost a sensual thing working with these thick acrylic paints. I almost want to put my hands in.

If they say they don't like the way I play Beethoven, then I can swallow that, and maybe they're right. But if they don't like what I've written, then it's about me.

I've always written - about music, art, things going on around the world. The danger is that it becomes too personal. I don't think people want it at that level of intimacy.

One of the things that touches me most when I play for an audience is that although we may be unable to communicate in words or have diametrically opposed views on hot-button issues, while the music sounds we can be at peace, we can be friends. The vibrations that fill an auditorium have no passports, and they unite ears when hearts may be divided.

I don't think of faith as something that's like a rock, that never changes. I think it's something that's very fluid, always changing.

I think it all comes from the same source, really, the writing of music, the writing of words, the playing of music. It's what drives anyone to be interested in the arts. I think it's a poetic gene; it's a wanting to go beyond.

Before the 20th century, to be a successful musician was merely to be one who was employed. A few, such as Liszt, Paderewski and several singers, had phenomenally lucrative careers, but they were rare - and Liszt gave all of his money away, travelling by choice in a third-class rail carriage.

To me, the heart of the ministry lies in being able to help deeply distressed people, not because of your own qualities but because you represent Christ.

Restaurants should be forced to recycle their leftovers for animal consumption - and should create fewer leftovers in the first place.

The 'Missa Mirabilis' is a big work which was conceived for a large organ and a lot of singers.

I just found the piano so fascinating and wonderful, and I begged my parents to buy me one. In the end, they bought me a toy piano and eventually an upright piano, and I started lessons.

The 'Rhapsody' has a lean, modern, American feel about it, whereas with Rachmaninoff's second and third concertos, you feel very much you're still in old imperial Russia.

Musicians keep playing when the lights go out, when people are suffering, confused, or angry.

If 'ecstasy' means to stand outside ourselves, then what better ambition can there be as we wait in the wings of the Royal Albert Hall: to leave self-obsession behind and take the audience on a journey across the high wire of Beethoven or the flying trapeze of Liszt.

In anything, there has to be that moment of fasting, really, in order to enjoy the feast.

If you are not living in the same area when you are looking for property, it is a nightmare because you come down for a day or two, have appointments to see places, and have to be able to make instant decisions before flying off to St. Louis or somewhere.

There are many doors to the heart.

In the bit of painting that I've done, I'm interested in colour and texture. I'm very interested in transparency.

I've loved Alfred Cortot's playing from an early age, and I never tire of hearing his recordings, particularly Chopin and Schumann from the 1920s and '30s.

In every generation, politicians let us down, but music can lift us above the fighting and the mistakes. It does not offer answers to specific political questions. Instead, it looks beyond them.

The Internet tempts us to think that because an email or a new website can be accessed in seconds that everything works at the same instant speed. Art is more like the growth of a plant. It needs time and space.

I was very quick; I did nothing but play the piano apart from being at school. I was at home with my mother, saying, 'Go out and get some fresh air.' No, I wanted to play the piano all the time I could. I was completely obsessed.

I wanted to be a disc jockey.

Brahms is life-changing every time. And though I love him, I can't say that about Mompou.