Quotes from Daniel Barenboim

We need a certain amount of energy to produce the sound. But then to sustain it, we have to give more energy, or otherwise, it goes and it dies in silence. And therefore, sound is absolutely, inextricably connected to time, the length of time.

There are many wonderful orchestras in the world, but very few who have a character or personality of their own. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is one of them, and I think it very important to recognize and respect that character.

I can't stand going out to one more dinner with some Mrs. So-and-So who might leave a million dollars to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra when she dies.

I have accumulated so many experiences, so much, that I want to be able to realize so many things. This is why I have basically given up most of my positions.

I don't like possessions.

Controversial means somebody who makes people think. And if you are afraid of people who will be against you, you might as well stay home and do nothing.

I get no satisfaction just showing myself in every corner of the world every week.

Either you live by the barometer of the music critics, or you live by your own. I choose the latter.

Live life to the full, and become more curious every day. The more you find out about life, the richer your music-making will be.

When we talk about music, we talk about our reaction to it. One person might say that music is so poetic, while another says it's all mathematics. Yet another might say it's about sensuality, and so on. That's all true. But music is not just one of these things. It's everything all at once.

Sound is often talked about in a very subjective way, as if it had a colour. This is a bright sound, this is a dark sound. I don't believe in that because I think that is much too subjective.

US presidents can make all the commitments and declarations they want until they are blue in the face, in the Muslim world they will always be perceived as partisan.

Music means different things to different people and sometimes even different things to the same person at different moments of his life.

There is too much employer-employee relationship in America. I wish the musicians would feel that many decisions have to do with them and not delegate everything to management or to the board or to the committee. This is why you get a sense of pride in some of the European orchestras: because they are part of the decision-making.

Playing and listening to music gives you a sense of fulfilment because you have to put everything in you at its disposal.

Any conductor who tells you that if he is approached for the directorship of the Chicago Symphony that he's not interested in it, you know perfectly well he's lying.

The tempo is the suitcase. If the suitcase is too small, everything is completely wrinkled. If the tempo is too fast, everything becomes so scrambled you can't understand it.

I am convinced that 100 years from now, people will talk about Elliott Carter as one of the most important figures in the second half of 20th-century music.

When you get to be 103, modernism is a very wide concept.

Beethoven's music tends to move from chaos to order, as if order were an imperative of human existence.

I would like to be a terrorist for music education - to make a complete reform, all over the world.

For many people, music is here to let them forget the daily chores of life.

The Barenboim Foundation has nothing to do with politics.

Children in schools need to have something to do with music and learn it the way they do literature, geography and biology.