Esa Pekka Salonen Quotes

• With American orchestras, in particular, because they play in such huge halls, getting a true pianissimo is very hard.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Hard, Play

• When we’re at the end of The Rite of Spring or of a Bruckner symphony, I want people to feel the music physically.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Music, Feeling

• This country, and the West Coast, especially, is bad at preserving any cultural legacy.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Country

  Tags in Cultural, Legacy

• This continuity of sound and form was something that I became really interested in from working with Ligeti. He was always going on about how form has to be continuous.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Interested, Working

• This conducting thing happened. In 1983 I was sucked into this international career, which was a very scary experience.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Experience

  Tags in Career

• 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

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  Tags in Problem, Times

• There is such a suspicion in today’s world of people who do more than one thing, who aren’t specialized.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Suspicion, Today, People

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Music, Process

• 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.

  Ethel Waters

  Topics in America

  Tags in Spirit, People

• The Royal Festival Hall in London is nice; people hang out there. I think this inviting, non-exclusive character is very important.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in London, Hall, Nice

• 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.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Players, Think, Yourself

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Idea, Form

• The music I turn out these days is the kind of music I want to hear myself.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Myself, Music

• The act of conducting in itself, of waving my arms in the air and being in charge, I didn’t miss. I missed the sensual pleasure of being in contact with music.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Music, Act

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

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Harmony, Precisely

• Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Expression

• Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Orchestras, Precision, Clarity

• Once you get over the first hill, there is always a new, higher one lurking, of course.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Yourself

• My music wouldn’t sound the way it does if I hadn’t had the experience of conducting.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Experience

  Tags in Music

• Music has just as much to do with movement and body as it does soul and intellect.

  Esa Pekka Salonen

  Topics in Soul

  Tags in Music, Effect

Esa Pekka Salonen (36)

Birth:	30th June, 1958
Nationality:	Finnish
Profession:	Composer, Music Conductor

About

Esa Pekka Salonen was born in Helsinki, Finland. He is a Finnish music conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Composer-In-Residence at the New York Philharmonic.

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Today's Anniversary - 21st November

Births

• 1971 - Michael Strahan
• 1962 - Steven Curtis Chapman
• 1943 - Philip Norman Bredesen Jr.
• 1937 - Marlo Thomas
• 1929 - Marilyn French

Deaths

• 1999 - Quentin Crisp
• 1958 - Mel Ott
• 1969 - Norman Lindsay
• 1996 - Mohammad Abdus Salam
• 1959 - Max Baer