Lorin Maazel Quotes (13 Quotes)

I come to a performance of music that I know very well as if I were performing it for the first time. Every day is a new day, a new experience. This is the way I approach a masterpiece. A masterpiece can never age - it's only the people who perform it or listen to it who become insensitive to it. If you come with a fresh feeling toward a masterpiece, it will always feel fresh and give you the benefit of its genius.

An interpreter brings to life music in the form that it is given to him, that is, a constellation of black spots on a page. But if the interpreter doesn't identify with the music and can't be one with it, then no number of directions from the composer will be of any help.

Salzburg was where he was born and where he was rejected.

Art rises above and beyond the issues of the day. It reunites what has been rent asunder, not along national or religious lines, but along individual, human ones. It heals, redefines goals, and strengthens the resolve to move on, to rebuild, to reconstruct. However obtuse human behavior is in other arenas, art, if not suborned, can clarify, put into perspective and re-inspire.

We are doing a program this season of music by Schubert, Schoenberg, Rachmaninoff, and Ravel, music which is totally -- on paper -- incompatible,

So whether you're devoted to the classical standards, crave something new, or look to deepen your understanding of a new work or an old favorite, the Philharmonic has your ticket to excitement The concert hall, ... is a place for controversy, for people who will stand up and scream 'We hate it' and people who will stand up and scream 'We love it' A major orchestra has to put forth the great masterpieces that have stirred, and continue to stir, assent and dissent.

The Beethoven Experience provided the opportunity to solidify the relationship between the Orchestra and me, the Orchestra and me and the public, between all of us and the city of New York, because Beethoven after all is a really amazing point of reference.

Why does Beethoven appeal and continue to appeal Other than the obvious (his having written great music), Beethoven communicates a credo so effectively that the listener finds the courage he needs to reaffirm his own belief in the purpose of life. Beethoven stiffens the fiber of our commitment in a language that is beauty itself, in a statement as open as a Greek temple. Friend Beethoven is the one friend we shall always have.

Our Orchestra must also continue to play its leadership role in the community and in our nation. The young look to us to provide substance in place of dross, emotional depth in place of shallow titillation.

Our goals are clear maintain a superb standard of performance of core classics, renew and refresh our tradition with contemporary music of value and relevance, reach out to all segments of our heterogeneous society, tour nationally and abroad as ambassadors of the true face of America.

You encourage, you push and pull. You look out at your colleagues and say, 'Yes, you can.' To bring performers past the limitations of their own potential is leadership. All fine leaders conducting from the podium have that. Emotion is what it's all about

In these confused times, the role of classical music is at the very core of the struggle to reassert cultural and ethical values that have always characterized our country and for which we have traditionally been honored and respected outside our shores.

I think I infuse the music with a new passion. Part of this is because I have fallen in love: I am in love with the New York Philharmonic. The chemistry has just been right. Beyond expectation.