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Stravinsky is masterly: his harmony is conceived so precisely that it can only be the way it is.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

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Esa-Pekka Salonen
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: June 30
Composer
Conductor
Helsingfors
Harmony
Way
Masterly
Stravinsky
Conceived
Precisely

More quotes by Esa-Pekka Salonen

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I've learned a lot from the masters of orchestration, like Ravel and Stravinsky.
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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.
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The philharmonic became such a journey and adventure in my life, and a deeply satisfying thing.
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We need new art. Old art cannot do that. It can do lots of other things, and of course humanity hasn't changed that much in the last thousand or two thousand years.So that the old Greek dramas are still at the very heart, core, of human experience, but still we need new stuff.
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I love a visceral sound, the kind that hits you in the belly.
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The players never think they project enough. In a hall that seats 3,300 people, it's a very scary thing to play so quietly that you can barely hear yourself.
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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.
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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.
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I think we still do have a PR problem in the sense that these institutions portray themselves quite often as a museum without the contemporary wing. For a young cutting-edge person, why would you get into that sort of business, which is very clearly geared towards dead or almost dead people?
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Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity.
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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.
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Conducting was just something that happened by fluke.
Esa-Pekka Salonen
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Our audience, it has been a more difficult process for classical music audiences around the world, and I'm not completely certain why.
Esa-Pekka Salonen
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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.
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There is something very special about this part of the world [U.S], which is the openness and the curiosity and the lack of prejudice and the lack of generally accepted norms as to what art should be and how an artist's career should go and all that.
Esa-Pekka Salonen
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In the range of music that we play - roughly 300 years' worth-there really are more similarities than differences.
Esa-Pekka Salonen
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The underlying process in Northern music tends to be slower and continuous, whatever's happening on the surface in Southern music the underlying process is always faster.
Esa-Pekka Salonen
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The classical music industry, has been an industry of covers. So we do covers, and if I compare this with the rock and pop side, what is the most exciting event?
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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
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We're not talking about an elite art form from the price point of view. We have a building in L.A. that is incredibly open, exciting, inviting, and all that, and there's no reason for this music not to be part of everybody's everyday life.
Esa-Pekka Salonen