“There will have to be times when I'm not conducting because I'm compos...” — Esa-Pekka Salonen Quote

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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 was really into the music of Cream after I finished composing the music for 'BTTB.'”

“It is hard work composing a song for a film and showing it to makers: 50% of the tune remains the same, and the remaining 50% is changed to suit the script.”

“What I wanted and what I visualized while composing has not always been realized.”

“You might lose your spontaneity and, instead of composing first-rate Gershwin, end up with second rate Ravel.”

“When I read something, I picture that scene in that detail. That becomes very similar to composing a photo in real life.”

“There are people who must spend huge amounts of time composing these online diatribes against me, all about how disgusting and terrible I am and how no one should ever read my books, and it's not enough for them to hate me, they can't stand the fact that ANYONE likes me!”