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In Hamburg, there are three major orchestras, an opera house, and one of the great concert-hall acoustics in Europe at the Laeiszhalle, in a town a fifth the size of London. And that's not unusual. In Germany, there are dozens of towns with two or three orchestras. The connection with music goes very, very deep.

But still as compared to many, many orchestras in the world, I think you find a lot more new music and living composers on our programs than many other places.

I also work with the regular orchestras in Munich, Germany and other similar orchestras.

Ergo, because of the money problem, it is probable that our orchestras will soon go down in quality.

I've been lucky to conduct the very best orchestras in the world: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Berlin, the London Philharmonic.

Symphonic orchestras have almost become a glut in the market.

When I want 30 musicians in the orchestra, I get 30.

I will never master this craft. Orchestras are very, very forthcoming with me.

You find Jews, Irish, and Italians in every orchestra.

I think conductors do spend too little time with their orchestras.