I'm thankful to Deutsche Grammophon, our partners - we are going to record the complete Shostakovich symphonies and hopefully some other things as well.

Most Beethoven symphonies require 80 or more instruments, and the late romantics even more.

It's a fundamental, social attitude that the 1% supports symphonies and operas and doesn't support Johnny learning to program hip-hop beats. When I put it like that, it sounds like, 'Well, yeah,' but you start to think, 'Why not, though?' What makes one more valuable than another?

Let's say intelligence is your ability to compose poetry, symphonies, do art, math and science. Chimps can't do any of that, yet we share 99 percent DNA. Everything that we are, that distinguishes us from chimps, emerges from that one-percent difference.

We cannot, after all, judge a biography by its length, by the number of pages in it; we must judge by the richness of the contents...Sometimes the 'unfinisheds' are among the most beautiful symphonies.

I love classical music and often listen to symphonies or opera in the morning.

It's a fundamental social attitude that the 1% supports symphonies and operas and doesn't support Johnny learning to program hip-hop beats. When I put it like that it sounds like 'Well yeah ' but you start to think 'Why not though?' What makes one more valuable than another?