"You need to implement immediately the ideas you have inside. Don't think about how to place your fingers, then it won't work. It has to come automatically, so to speak. You have to watch what I'm doing, but you can't stop."

"In the end - and this I learned from Harnoncourt - one cannot be certain about anything, it remains unprovable. The only option is to feel it, to create something beautiful with taste. This he taught me - to look the human side. "

"There is something mythical about a performance. And it should stay that way. Everything and nothing can be going on in our heads while we play. Maybe that’s necessary for us to shape and connect with the music."

"When playing in a quartet, one of the most important things is to respect all the individual personalities of each member; they are part of the identity of the group."

"What is fascinating about a string quartet? The fact that there’s no conductor. Watching the four players on stage, you can see the communication, the tension, the pushback and the intimacy. In the age of Facebook and Instagram, when we only seem capable of sharing virtual intimacy, that’s very attractive."

"When I first heard the Grosse Fuge I thought to myself: 'this is insane and impossible to understand from a first hearing, I must listen to it again'. I still think that! "

"What I feel is most beautiful, however, is one of these moments in opera when one is completely lonely, when one sheds the tear which one has all by oneself. If then you suceed in having people breathe with you, you're lonely indeed but not by yourself. "