"In order to lift a certain object from the ground, we have to use energy. But then to sustain it at ..." — Daniel Barenboim

Wagner is contrapuntal in a philosophical way as well as a musical way. What I mean by that is that every tendency has its opposite, and you see that in the man himself. He's a metaphysical hermaphrodite - he embraces hard and soft, masculine and feminine.

When I played my first concert with an orchestra, I was eight years old in Berlin.

I have music in my brain all the time, all sorts.

I maintain music is not here to make us forget about life. It's also here to teach us about life: the fact that everything starts and ends, the fact that every sound is in danger of disappearing, the fact that everything is connected - the fact that we live and we die.