Violin Concerto no. 1, featuring Wilhelm Friedemann Herzog,

Get the bow going! Let it scream to me: Violin! Violin! Violin!

I wasn't motivated to do it [re-record Bach's Goldberg Variations] until rather recently, when it occurred to me, on one of my rare relistenings to that early recording, that it was very nice, but that it was perhaps a little bit like thirty very interesting but somewhat independent-minded pieces, going their own way, and all making a comment on the ground bass on which they are all formed and to which they all conform. And I suddenly felt, not having played it in, well, since I stopped playing concerts, about 20 years, having not played it in all that time, that maybe I wasn't savaged by any over-exposure to it, and that if I looked at it again, I could find a way of making some sort of almost arithmetical correspondence between the theme and the subsequent variations, so that there would be some sort of temporal relationship, I don't want to say just exactly 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, that kind of correspondence, but, you know what I mean, there would be a sense in which, substituting for the fact that Bach had absolutely no melodic design that is continuous but rather a base harmonic design that is continuous, there would be at least a rhythmic design that is continuous, and the sense of pulse that went through it. And that seemed to me sufficient justification [...] to do it all over again.

You play the violin like an angel. Play it; play something light and lively. Get this cursed bad business off your mind.

I have one idea about this whole interpretation problem as it relates to orchestral music — too many of our conductors start with old music. What they should do is interpret the music of our time and then go backwards. They would be much better off because if you interpret a contemporary work, where the composer is still alive and have contact with the compositional mind, you will also play older music as looked at from the perspective of the composer, instead of an interpretive kind of idea. I hate the performer that says, “Did you ever hear my Beethoven?” I don’t want to hear his Beethoven! I want to hear Beethoven.

Another story must begin!

Although it may seem incredible, this cure helped me. At the beginning of the summer I began to compose... New musical ideas began to stir with me-far more than I needed for my concerto. By the autumn I had finished the Adagio and Finale... The Two movements I played... at a charity concert... They had a gratifying success... By the Spring I had finished the first movement of the concerto... Out of gratitude, I dedicated it to Nikolay Dahl.

In earlier days I used to like introducing new music in concerts but now I feel that I have done my duty to young composers… so I return to my first love Romantic music – and especially to Brahms who has always been my favourite.

the whimsical first movement of Violin Concerto no. 1, featuring Wilhelm Friedemann Herzog, playing

How I regret not having told César Franck of my profound admiration for him and his music. After playing he Sonata for violin for the first time, I nearly wept over certain phrases. The beauty of it overwhelmed me.

This is an orchestra. You are the composer and conductor.

Life' wrote a friend of mine, 'is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.

Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible. [on hearing a famous violinist]

if a violin string could ache, i would be that string.