George Hanson Quotations

Steven is such an asset to this orchestra. Because he and I view so many aspects of music-making the same, it makes it easy for us. When I'm asking for a particular sound, he knows what I mean and he's able to communicate it technically to the string players. Steven has really helped me tremendously in our effort to make the Tucson Symphony strings sound like a major orchestra.

But Mozart has a whole different set of challenges. Mozart requires a particular sense of sound, and getting that sound out of a modern instrument after you have had years of playing Chopin and Liszt and big works like that, then Mozart becomes in a sense harder.

You look at Beethoven's sketch book and he's working things out, trying this, trying that. Mozart didn't do that. He simply wrote it out. Beethoven did not have the same abilities that Mozart had. And you know how much Beethoven means to us. When you listen to the Ninth Symphony, it's one of the greatest accomplishments of all mankind, artistically certainly. But he shuddered when he thought of the shadow Mozart cast over music and he felt pressure, just like Brahms felt the pressure Beethoven's Ninth put on symphonic writing.

The worst thing you can have is a poorly drafted, ambiguous agreement that leads to years of litigation.

Thanks to some diligent music historians, we now understand that when you go back to the instruments of the day and discover how the tempos would be, how the balance would be, it changes your perception. You go for a more technical approach to the strings, use less pressure with the bow and more speed.

Instead of pressing hard with the bow, you press lightly and you go faster. That will affect the balance.