Creativity Quote by Esa-Pekka Salonen

A flex disguised as a shrug, Salonen’s line lands because it refuses the heroic myth of the maestro. “Perhaps 500” is the kind of number that should sound like legend-building, yet he blunts it with imprecision and a casually human admission: plenty were “very bad.” The intent isn’t self-deprecation for its own sake; it’s calibration. He’s telling you what mastery actually looks like from inside the job: repetition, risk, and a long paper trail of nights that didn’t sparkle.

The subtext is about first performances as a special kind of danger. Premieres are where a conductor can’t hide behind tradition or audience memory. There’s no canonical tempo to borrow, no familiar interpretive consensus to lean on, and often no safety net in the players’ muscle memory. By foregrounding failure, Salonen quietly dignifies the messy, high-wire labor that new music requires. He’s also defending composers: a weak premiere doesn’t necessarily indict the piece; it may just be the inevitable turbulence of bringing something into the world.

Context matters: Salonen is a modern-music power broker, someone who has helped decide what gets heard and how. That position often invites an aura of certainty. This quote punctures it. It normalizes fallibility without romanticizing it, implying that artistic progress comes less from genius moments than from showing up to the next “first” after the last one went sideways. It’s a practical ethic disguised as candor: keep commissioning, keep risking embarrassment, keep learning in public.