James Levine Quotes

The thing I love about music is, if you do it long enough, you get better and better at translating what's in your head to a medium. That's why I keep doing it.

Through conducting, you express through your arms, through your face and even the body, what you want to tell, so the musicians of the orchestra understand.

For three years, the 'Meistersinger' score was a ball and chain to me. It went with me to every city and concert hall.

I think it's a very important collaboration between the conductor and the orchestra - especially when the conductor is one more member of the orchestra in the way that you are leading, but also respecting, feeling and building the same way for all the players to understand the music.

Like most musicians, I'm good at becoming immersed in the music that I am currently working on. We seldom lift up our heads to contemplate even the music we will be doing in the future, let alone what we've done in the past.

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

Toward the later days of Sabbath, instead of going in and knocking out what songs we did in rehearsal, we would polish them to death.

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.

My only ambition is to grow as a musician.

People often complain that music is too ambiguous, that what they should think when they hear it is so unclear, whereas everyone understands words. With me, it is exactly the opposite, and not only with regard to an entire speech but also with individual words.

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

It's just that, when the orchestra look at me, I want them to see a completely involved person who reflects what we rehearsed, and whose function is to make it possible for them to do it.

In terms of growing as a songwriter, I'm just a guy who understands the craft better. I understand what I want to do with it. I think that's where I've grown. Have I fully achieved that? No, but I don't think you ever do. There's always room to grow.

The combination of experience and experimentation will ultimately yield a personal sound.

Lyrically, I could be so much sharper. Melodically, I could be so much stickier. Musically, I could have so much more texture. So I'm constantly doing that, trying to find new ways to mix things up.

Conducting is more difficult than playing a single instrument. You have to know the culture, to know the score, and to project what you want to hear. Some conductors are well prepared but cannot transmit their ideas to an orchestra, and others are good communicators but have nothing to transmit because they are not absorbed enough in the score.

I think my playing has been orchestral throughout the years, and this is another way of expressing that. But I primarily see it as the ultimate accomplishment of a musician. Composing makes me feel like I've finally gotten all the way up the ladder as a musician.

I absolutely insist upon adequate rehearsal time - particularly for the pieces that orchestras know best. Because there, the tendency is not to take them apart - rediscover them - and you must.

To be able to produce many varieties of sound, now that is what I call technique, and that is what I try to do. I don't adhere to any methods, because I simply don't believe in them. I think each pianist must ultimately carve his own way, technically and stylistically.

Just understand that the type of music that I make is something special.

Part of being in a band is getting better.

As my guitar playing dwindled, something else in my music got better.

I have so much regard for the art of conducting. It's easy to look not so good up there.

I don't think I'm getting better, quote unquote, as a singer or guitar player. But I'm more comfortable in this particular space. I get better at being a bad singer, so to speak.

Any musical form that has been around long enough to have cultural resonance beyond just being a cutting edge kind of communication - but, especially, when it begins to reflect on a time and reflect on a culture - is effective in a musical.