"I admire Elliott Carter endlessly. But I have no ambitions to emulate him." — Andre Previn

There's a small group of music critics in the States who will forgive you anything - jazz, a long prison term, or what have you - anything but scoring a Hollywood musical.

I don't ever consciously change gears when I play jazz or classical. It's all music.

I absolutely insist upon adequate rehearsal time - particularly for the pieces that orchestras know best. Because there, the tendency is not to take them apart - rediscover them - and you must.

It's been thrown up to me most of my life: Why don't I just concentrate on conducting or composing or my own playing or on jazz?

People who don't do jazz think it's black magic. But really, it's just a matter of getting used to it. It's fun to gamble. The trick is not to fall back on the things you've done before.

I don't even have a cell phone. I don't know how they work.

I've had the healthy and sobering experience of constantly working with music that is invariably better than any performance of it can be.

I remain extraordinarily proud of the Vaughan Williams symphonies I recorded with the LSO, and in the 1980s and '90s, I made an almost complete cycle of orchestral works by Richard Strauss with the Vienna Philharmonic.

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I admire Elliott Carter endlessly. But I have no ambitions to emulate him.