Quotes from Jonathan Cott

Sometime between four o'clock and dawn, Bernstein returned home with a hangover. At nine in the morning, he was awakened by a phone call from the Philharmonic's associate manager who told him, "Well, this is it. You have to conduct at three o'clock. No chance of a rehearsal. You will report at a quarter of three backstage.

None of would've made it alone" John once explained, "because Paul wasn't strong enough, I didn't have enough girl-appeal, George was too quiet, and Ringo was the drummer. But we thought everyone would be able to dig at least one of us, and that's how it turned out.

Life without music is unthinkable. Music without life is academic. That is why my contact with music is a total embrace

I was talking about pounding a nail in a board, it seems like there's a board there and all the nails are pounded in all over the place, you know, and every new person that comes to pound in a nail finds that there's one less space, you know. I hope we haven't got to the end of the space yet.

I was astonished at how wonderful these books were; and even though I was occasionally discomforted when someone, having asked me what book I had in my pocket, looked aghast when I pulled out a copy of Heidi or Finn Family Moomintroll, I soon realized that my then-present condition of "second childhood" was not one of senility and depression but of renewal and awakening.

None of us would have made it alone" John once explained, "because Paul wasn't strong enough, I didn't have enough girl-appeal, George was too quiet, and Ringo was the drummer. But we thought everyone would be able to dig at least one of us, and that's how it turned out.

WOW!" A GALVANIZED Igor Stravinsky reportedly exclaimed after listening to Leonard Bernstein's astonishing recording of The Rite of Spring—a still-unsurpassed performance that Columbia Records captured more than fifty years ago in a single inspired and electrically charged recording session on January 20, 1958, in New York City.

Woman" is the grownup version of "Girl.

People are always judging or criticizing you, or focusing on what you're trying to say on one little album, on one little song, but to me it's a lifetime's work.

the artist's job is not to get locked into any period

Anything of a serious nature isn't "instant"—you can't "do" the Sistine Chapel in one hour. And who has time to listen to a Mahler symphony, for God's sake?

the blue mountain's soft lines were like the dampness glowing in the moss

Se você fica sabendo de uma coisa — e isso é uma lei natural —, não pode mais não saber .

I have opened my belly and placed you inside.

Look at the score and make it come alive as if [you] were the composer. If you can do that, you're a conductor and if you can't, you're not. If I don't become Brahms or Tchaikovsky or Stravinsky when I'm conducting their works, then it won't be a great performance.

The only moments I have when I play that are worth anything to me are when I can blissfully ignore the people I am supposed to be entertaining. No me; no silly public to amuse; only the heart and the soul, the world, the birds, storms, dreams, sadness, heavenly serenity. Then I am an artist worthy of the name . . . . Until it happens, or if it doesn't happen, I am miserable.