106 Quotes by Esa-Pekka Salonen

I’ve learned a lot from the masters of orchestration, like Ravel and Stravinsky.

I can’t imagine how many first performances I’ve done, perhaps 500. Some of them have been very good, and some of course very bad.

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.

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.

When an artist works today or whenever, it’s not about creating immortal masterpieces, because that’s the one thing we don’t decide ourselves.

I don’t believe in an annual dose of film music for the sake of it being film music. If we program film music, it will be because there is a real artistic reason for doing so.

I like this idea of identification with the local team. I think it’s great. That’s what an orchestra should be. It’s an orchestra for its hometown, and it serves the people.