Able Quote by James Levine

The better the orchestra, often the harder it is to conduct, not the other way around.

— Simon Rattle

Why write for the orchestra? For one thing it's a very challenging problem.

— Elliott Carter

I think this orchestra's strengths involve drama and voice.

— James Levine

For an artist, there's nothing better than working with an orchestra.

— Rene Angelil

I'm not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer.

— Leonard Bernstein

When I first wrote for orchestra, I didn't realize, when you have 20 people playing a violin line, that is very different than one…

— David Del Tredici

Writing orchestra music, you need for the emotional content to come from everyone doing everything together, adding up as it goes, a crowd mentality.

— Nico Muhly

It's easy for me to write a quasi-virtuosic orchestral score. What is harder is to do that and say, all right, that works, but…

— James Newton Howard

Every orchestra has its own sound.

— Simon Rattle

You have to change your mind with every orchestra because every orchestra has a different character.

— Kurt Masur

Musicians have to do what they do and express it musically. All the blah blah blah will get lost in the dialogue.

— Carlos Alomar

It might work with one orchestra, and the next orchestra - the oboe player might not get it. It's different every time, but some…

— Ian Anderson