Lorin Maazel Quotes


You encourage, you push and pull. You look out at your colleagues and say, 'Yes, you can.' To bring [performers] past the limitations of their own potential is leadership. All fine leaders conducting from the podium have that. Emotion is what it's all about. Music-making without emotion and passion is nothing. I'm never looking for a perfect performance, I'm looking for an impassioned performance. - Lorin Maazel



Why does Beethoven appeal and continue to appeal? Other than the obvious (his having written great music), Beethoven communicates a credo so effectively that the listener finds the courage he needs to reaffirm his own belief in the purpose of life. Beethoven stiffens the fiber of our commitment in a language that is beauty itself, in a statement as open as a Greek temple. Friend Beethoven is the one friend we shall always have. - Lorin Maazel



What our profession is all about is interacting with people. - Lorin Maazel



We are doing a program this season of music by Schubert, Schoenberg, Rachmaninoff, and Ravel, music which is totally -- on paper -- incompatible. - Lorin Maazel



To be passionate in today's world is not politically correct... Nowadays we are supposed to cope. This was not Mahler's problem. He saw it, he heard it, and he expressed it. He was a kaleidoscopic, Olympian figure. - Lorin Maazel



The collaboration with the musicians of the New York Philharmonic is sheer joy. The Orchestra is so professional, so prepared, so motivated. I float from day to day, concert to concert, masterpiece to masterpiece, supported by the sound of the New York Philharmonic. - Lorin Maazel