Perhaps, once I am gone, the one thing I might be remembered for is having sung a great deal of Mahler with a great many phenomenal conductors. It is wonderful music, very spiritual.
I like the way Mahler wandered about in his music and still retained his passion. He must have looked like an earthquake walking down the street.
You should never trust anyone who listens to Mahler before they're forty.
There's times when the fans are able to see what we see in practice. They execute phenomenally. (Assistant) coach (Robert) Mahler does an unbelievable job with the offense. He's so creative. All I do is hold the reigns a little bit.
Not only does Mahler make it possible for the listener to visualize a time and place, but even more important is his ability to make you experience the feeling of being there.
How can you expect audiences to accept everything new? People threw eggs at Stravinsky. Bruckner was so depressed after the debut of one of his works that Mahler had to come and comfort him. New music has always been difficult for audiences to accept.
My favorite composers are the ones that tell the story. I love Wagner. I love Mahler. Prokofiev. The programmatic music. I listen more to classic rock because I don't like the contemporary music very much.
To be passionate in today's world is not politically correct... Nowadays we are supposed to cope. This was not Mahler's problem. He saw it, he heard it, and he expressed it. He was a kaleidoscopic, Olympian figure.
I have always adored Mahler, and Mahler was a major influence on the music of the Beatles. John and me used to sit and do the Kindertotenlieder and Wunderhorn for hours, we'd take turns singing and playing the piano. We thought Mahler was gear.
I like to sing to Verdi, I like singing to Sibelius, and Mahler maybe.