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I've learned a lot from the masters of orchestration, like Ravel and Stravinsky.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
I think if you would like to describe composing as an act with one word, "slow" would be the word.
Esa-Pekka Salonen
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There is such a suspicion in today's world of people who do more than one thing, who aren't specialized.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
I'm still disturbed if a chord isn't together, but your priorities change as you get older.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
Somehow, conductor as this superhuman conduit between the masters and the masterpieces and the immortals.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
There was this kind of mildly annoying mythology about conductor Like biker should riding a Harley-Davidson on an LP cover, and wearing a sort of a leather suit.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
With American orchestras, in particular, because they play in such huge halls, getting a true pianissimo is very hard.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
The Northern idea of form is more of a process. The various units of the form overlap. You can't tell where some things stop and new things start. This is typical of Sibelius.
Esa-Pekka Salonen
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Of course, if you think of a European or American household in the '50s, so what were the things that when people started climbing up the ladder, what did they buy? A fridge, a TV, I think piano was the number three item in say '53 or '54.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
There is more openness in LA to possibilities than on the East Coast of America. There is a pioneering spirit there that stems from the reason people went out there in the first place-to find something new.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
Every orchestra I know, every opera house I know, is desperately looking around trying to find new talent, new composing talent, supporting young composers, supporting new ideas, supporting new ways of getting the message across.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
Our industry classic music has kind of retarded into this kind of endless cover-producing thing, and it's a pity.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
It would be very tempting to say that why paint because we have Michelangelo, we have Leonardo [Da Vinci], we have all these guys. Why waste your time, because most likely you're not going to be on that level anyway.
Esa-Pekka Salonen
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I discovered that the people of the North are different and there's no way you can make a person from the North similar to a Southerner. They're two different worlds.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
I was starting a group of musicians and we had a group of young composers in Finland back in the '70s, and the real conductors, the professional conductors at the time were not interested in our stuff.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
If I were in a position to announce a public competition to coin a new word, I would do so right now.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
There will have to be times when I'm not conducting because I'm composing. I haven't solved that problem, and perhaps I never will.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
I always felt that one day I would have to make the change in my own life, bite the bullet and see what it is to be a composer who conducts rather than the other way around.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
As we watch TV or films, there are no organic transitions, only edits. The idea of A becoming B, rather than A jumping to B, has become foreign.
Esa-Pekka Salonen
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I love a visceral sound, the kind that hits you in the belly.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
Anyone who composes and conducts at the same time is immediately suspect, because he must be faking one or the other.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
Stravinsky is masterly: his harmony is conceived so precisely that it can only be the way it is.
Esa-Pekka Salonen -
I'm composing more than before. I'm cutting down on conducting.
Esa-Pekka Salonen