The Compulsion to Conduct
Musicians
"A conductor must give musicians all the time they need to be creative in their solos. He must not try to control every aspect of a performance.
“I don’t think you can teach conducting. You can teach people how to beat various time signatures, but that’s not conducting. The thing is, musicians are not your instruments. They are human beings. They never cease to be human beings.”
"Better call on the musicians’ intelligence. On their willingness to take an active role in the search for the ideal musical expressions."
“I detest all that charisma stuff. It leads to unmusical things like the pursuit of power. The older I get, the more wary I am of power. It is a beastly ingredient in our society.”
“I think that the secret of my success there is that I have no power. One of my conditions for taking up the position was that they run the operation and organise the guest conductors. I just choose whatever I want to conduct.”
“Conducting is less about personalities and egos than about making music… To lose your temper is only useful once a year.”