The Steinway piano is such an incomparable instrument. Due to its virtues, I am able to express all my musical feelings.
Now the first step has to be taken, the step towards democracy. This step is full of risks, and requires trust on all sides. We don't know where it will lead. But if we just stand still, we will have no chance of escaping the violence.
Wagner exploited all forms of expression at a composer's disposal - harmony, dynamics, orchestration - to the extreme. His music is highly emotional, and at the same time Wagner has extraordinary control over the effect he achieves.
The ear plays the role of the guide in the museum in the concert I'm taking now. We don't have an oral guide, we have to provide it ourselves. One reason why active listening is absolutely essential.
In the long term, Israel's security rests on only one pillar: the Palestinians' acceptance of the country. It isn't the atom bomb that makes Israel secure.
I have the greatest respect for the survivors of the Holocaust. We can't even imagine what these people went through.
You can't expect someone born into a family with no music...to understand when I'm conducting the Schönberg Variations.
Tradition demands that we not speak poorly of the dead.
I'm sure that there are many Israelis who dream of waking up one day to find the Palestinians gone. And there are many Palestinians who dream of going to bed at night and waking up the next morning to find the Israelis gone.
Israel's strategy cannot be to constantly confront the Palestinians with the history of the Holocaust, but instead to show them that Israel is a reality.
I'm not naive. I know perfectly well that there isn't a single Arab or Muslim in the world who would say: There has to be a Jewish state in the Middle East.
I don't believe that the entire world is constantly anti-Semitic.
Germany will never be a real, free thinking and free feeling friend of Israel, because it will always fall under this shadow.
If a man dreams about sleeping with Marilyn Monroe, he's certainly entitled to that. But when he wakes up, he has to acknowledge that he is married to someone else.
There are probably many people in Israel who believe that Wagner, who died in 1883, lived in Berlin in 1942 and was friends with Hitler.
An Israeli who thinks that his government is doing everything right wouldn't join the Divan Orchestra in the first place.
I love conducting. What I'm tired of is music administration. I don't want that. I just want to make music.
