Michael Tilson Thomas

And I thought to myself, well, I know that I'm good enough.

I know I'm good enough.

I could be...

a university musician, and there are wonderful things happening at this music school of great quality and expression.

And if I could do this, as long as I can make music, I'll be very happy.

And if it turns out that I can make music in some larger arena, well, we'll see about that.

But I know that it's music itself, which is this process, this dialogue with something in my spirit that I must pursue.

And then I knew I was...

Going into music with no other agenda.

It was just the music itself that mattered.

And it was those people for whom music truly mattered who were the ones that had wonderful lives as musicians.

Well, never perform with your heart not being in it.

Never allow yourself to get to the point where it's a job.

Always make sure that your spirit is focused so that communicating music to other people is a central priority for you.

It's definitely a mixture of both.

I think the easiest way for you to understand this is that there's a constant give-and-take process going on in the rehearsals and in the performance itself.

So there are certain key moments where I have to really indicate the exact ictus of a certain moment in time to get around a particular corner.

And then having done that...

then what I want to do is sort of turn over the lead of the music to perhaps a solo oboe player or perhaps the viola section or maybe a brass chorale.

All those different groups within the orchestra have their own reaction time.