Art & Creativity Quote by Michael Tilson Thomas

Tilson Thomas is making a case for classical music as emotional long-form storytelling, not museum-grade perfection. The phrase "must always do more" is the tell: he is less interested in defending the repertoire than in calling out how it has been packaged. In an era when classical institutions often sell "timeless masterpieces" like luxury goods, he insists the genre's real competitive advantage is messier and more human: the ability to dramatize a mind in motion.

His language borrows from psychology rather than theory. "Transformation of moods" and "a very wide psychological voyage" recast symphonies and operas as interior journeys - closer to bingeable prestige TV arcs than to polite background music. That framing is strategic: it meets modern listeners where they already live, in narrative and character, not in pedigree. He's also quietly rejecting the common outreach tactic of explaining form (sonata, development, recapitulation) as if the audience were taking a quiz. The subtext is that classical music doesn't need to be translated into "relevance"; it needs to be performed and presented as emotionally legible.

The sting lands in "we...have underestimated". It's a self-indictment of the classical profession: too much emphasis on correctness, brand maintenance, and reverence can flatten the very volatility that makes Mahler shattering or Beethoven combustible. Coming from a conductor long associated with both canon and advocacy, the intent is institutional as much as artistic: program, perform, and speak about this music as psychological drama - because that's how it actually works on people when it's alive.