Esa-Pekka Salonen Quotes

The success of our operas rests most of the time in the hands of the conductor. This person is as necessary as a tenor or a prima donna.

It's been a thrilling journey - I have had to really learn that an orchestra is an entity - it's a creature. I have been calling it the dragon and the conductor is the dragon tamer. And you just have to... ride and don't let go and you will be fine.

So many times, I've seen conductors that, every time they have a thought, they stop the orchestra and say it, and I can see the orchestra rolling their eyes and saying, 'Oh, God, he stopped again.' So there's a technique to rehearsing.

I think conductors do spend too little time with their orchestras.

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.

Conducting is a strange thing to teach. There are very few great conducting teachers, and most great conductors don't teach. Look at Valery Gergiev - what he does is not teachable. A lot of it is on-the-job training, what works and what doesn't work.

Conductors are performers.

Good conductors know when to push and when to lay back. I've known so many great conductors that I'm still doing what I can to learn the craft of this role.

Most musicians count at the beginning, and never count and talk to their musicians after that. They only talk to them at the end of the song. But I would count with them and talk.

I always imagined that to bring an orchestra to play together is not enough for a conductor.

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.

The better the orchestra, often the harder it is to conduct, not the other way around.

Orchestras only need to be sworn at, and a German is consequently at an advantage with them, as English profanity, except in America, has not gone beyond a limited technology of perdition.

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you, like the winter that has just gone by. For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.

In fighting scandal, the key is not to overreact.

I remember my son wanted to go to bed with his cowboy boots on, and we had this fight for like an hour. Then I realized that the only good reason I had for him not to do it is because I didn't want him to. There was really no other reason. And finally I said, "OK, fine." It was a great victory for me, because I realized it doesn't really matter.

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

When you stop fighting, that's death.

Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring The Winter Garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To fly-and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

You don't have to fight every battle. You don't have to respond to every critic. You don't have to be offended because of what others say. You can rise above these things and soar.

The Bauls say, "Don't try to force anything." Let life be a deep let-go. See God opening millions of flowers every day without forcing the buds, waiting, never in a hurry, giving their time to them. The Bauls say, "Everything happens at its right time, everything happens in its own season. Wait, don't be impatient, don't be in a hurry. All hurry is greed, and all hurry is a subtle fight." That which is going to happen will happen. Whenever it is going to happen it will happen; you need not fight existence. You can surrender, you can trust.

It is hard to fight desire; but to control it is the sign of a reasonable man.

No stress, no fights. I'm leaving it all behind. No tears, no time to cry. Just making the most of life.

The boy I just kissed is talking to my father. The boy I want to kiss again is waiting for my mother to serve pancakes. I must fight the urge to freak.

Again, although I'm not a particularly religious person, I go back to the religious left that I come out of: There are moral imperatives to fight back. As Daniel Berrigan says, "We're called to do the good." And then we have to let it go. It's not our job to know where the good goes.