Kurt Masur Quotes

And I like to interpret music. So I think it's all interpretive.

Conductors must give unmistakable and suggestive signals to the orchestra - not choreography to the audience.

In contrast, traditional classical music starts from an abstract musical schema. This is then notated and only expressed in concrete sound as a last stage, when it is performed.

I approach everything as chamber music. Even with Beethoven symphonies, I lead from the violin and basically encourage the orchestra to think of it as a giant string quartet.

The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, 'Is there a meaning to music?' My answer would be, 'Yes.' And 'Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?' My answer to that would be, 'No.'

A Beethoven symphony should be rehearsed like chamber music, only for a lot more people.

Nobody talks about music as having intrinsic meaning, how it engages the mind.

I love music, especially classical like Verdi; it's a great way to relax.

In symphonic music, when you are conducting, you do the same thing. You are feeling the whole orchestra, thinking ahead so you can prepare for a change.

After conducting Wagner, Beethoven's triple concerto is like taking an Alka Seltzer.

But those musics do not address the larger kind of architecture in time that classical music does, whatever each one of us knows that classical music must mean.

New music is absolutely integral to classical music.

I admire Tom Ades: he's a brilliant conductor, and he gets just the right hard, brilliant sound from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for Russian music.

It is very gratifying to see the music from 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy find a new life on the concert stage as it is performed by different orchestras and choruses throughout the world.

I think of a piece of music as something that comes alive when it is being performed, and I feel that my role in the transmission of music is to be its best advocate at that moment.

I think the whole question of meaning in music is difficult enough even if you hear me playing live right now in the same room! What I mean and what you take from it may be two quite different things anyway.

Playing the Beethoven symphonies, for example, is a consummate experience for a musician because Beethoven speaks so directly to who we are as people.

In Haydn's oratorios, the notes present to the imagination not only motions, as, of the snake, the stag, and the elephant, but colors also; as the green grass.

The world of classical music is so fascinating. It's a world that encompasses people from everywhere and erases the basic restraints of nationality; everyone is united by this common language of music.

It's a wonderful thing to play with symphony orchestras - I've played with many - but it's really special in Israel because you have so many great musicians.

Music has an intrinsic meaning, which has always been mysterious to me.

I'm sure the atmosphere at Tanglewood and the space there and nature - I think it absolutely fits Wagner's music.

Orchestral musicians have a different approach than we do, and when I say 'we,' I mean musicians who don't know what they are doing.

Music is a very physical experience, and I need to understand things physically to be able to create the narrative for them.

I am a singer, first and foremost, but the medium happens to be the cello.