If I belong to a tradition it is a tradition that makes the masterpiece tell the performer what he should do and not the performer telling the piece ….

You have to be aware of all the latent possibilities that give a work its special character - its atmosphere, its moods, its contrasts..

Art gives a sense of order, life is basically chaotic, and there's a tension between them. A sense of order comes from chaos and contains a bit of it….

Silence... is the essence of the music itself, the vital ingredient that makes it possible for the music to exist at all..

I want to make music. That means I prefer the Steinway piano..

A work of art is like a person: it has more than one soul in its breast..

I have a great need to learn what the norm is by dealing with what is not the norm... with the grotesque and the fantastic..

I'm coming back to what you said about seeing and listening and hearing. I had to think of a remark that I heard yesterday, somebody came and said ' ….

Silence ought also to be the core of each concert. Remember the anagram: listen = silent..

The word 'listen' contains the same letters as the word 'silent.'.

You need three or five hands to play Ligeti..

In his larger forms, Schubert is a wanderer. He likes to move at the edge of the precipice, and does so with the assurance of a sleepwalker. To wande….