Leonard Slatkin Quotes

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

Beethoven's symphonies are not 'relaxing.' They are the most exciting things that have ever been created by a human being.

I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill.

Mozart has written opera, symphony, sacred and chamber music - not to mention his piano and violin concerti.

When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.

Part of me is probably more conservative than people realise. I like my old string quartets, I don't like music that's trippy for trippy's sake.

Stravinsky is masterly: his harmony is conceived so precisely that it can only be the way it is.

Mozart combined high formality and playfulness that delights as no other composition in any other medium does.

Beethoven, Schubert, Schoenberg, Berg imply a type of pianist who is intellectual. That's not always associated with female soloists.

Beethoven's fourth and seventh symphonies have a certain amount in common. Well, of course they're both written by Beethoven, but besides that, I would say their overall effect and idea is to provide the listener with an incredible sense of joy.

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!

Beethoven's importance in music has been principally defined by the revolutionary nature of his compositions. He freed music from hitherto prevailing conventions of harmony and structure.

I'm not a total chump. I write stuff that's reasonably musically complex.

Western music is Bach, Handel and Schubert. It's good music, cleverly done. As a musician, I can see that.

Bach in general was so good with the violin. He just finds the genius way around his music on the instrument.

Deep down, classical Romantic music is what I love: Brahms, Tchaikovsky, the Romantics.

When you hear composer, you think, like, Beethoven: guy in a powdered wig, at a piano, furiously scribbling on manuscript paper. That's not the only image that a composer should bring up, you know. But that's kind of what we've said it is.

I came from a Conservatoire background where the idea of complexity was very much bound up with good music - good music was seen as complex and difficult to understand.

I grew up loving symphonies. Beethoven is beautiful.

I'm a big Beethoven fan, and you'll struggle to find a three-minute song on any of his stuff.

There are some composers - at the head of whom stands Beethoven - who not only do not know when to stop but appear to stop many times before they actually do.

When I think of Boris Diaw, I think of Beethoven in the age of the romantics

Beethoven was just music, and it didn't matter if he could hear it or not - he could feel it. He could hear it in his mind. He could write it down hearing it in his mind. He was just music. Yeah, he's one of my favorite writers of all times.

If you look back, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven were mixing music and humor all the time.

Classical music presents some of the world's most challenging pieces.