It's really sad that the kids today can only relate to Beethoven via a rock version of his music.

Beethoven can write music thank God but he can do nothing else on earth.

My mom and I were super tight. I think she really wanted me to be an artist you know? She used to like to tell people she wanted to be Beethoven's mother. That was her thing. She wanted to be the mother of this person.

With copious evidence ranging from Plato's haughtiness to Beethoven's tirades we may conclude that the most brilliant people of history tend to be a prickly lot.

It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.

I worked on scores. I went to the musical library in Berlin which is very famous. I discovered that we had scores of Beethoven printed scores of Beethoven that are full of mistakes. Not the wrong or false notes but the wrong dynamic understandable things.

Listening to my regular favourites - Mozart Beethoven Brahms and so on - I always feel quite misguidedly that nothing can be too bad if such beauty and brilliance exists in the world.

When the bright angel dominates out comes a great work of art a Michelangelo David or a Beethoven symphony.

The Beethoven Experience provided the opportunity to solidify the relationship between the Orchestra and me the Orchestra and me and the public between all of us and the city of New York because Beethoven after all is a really amazing point of reference.