Art & Creativity Quote by Esa-Pekka Salonen

There is a quiet flex in Salonen framing his output as a listening problem he’s solving for himself. It sidesteps the usual artist-to-audience posture and replaces it with something more bracing: the composer-conductor as his own most demanding consumer. Coming from a figure who has spent decades inside institutions built on gatekeeping and audience cultivation, the line reads like a declaration of autonomy. He’s not chasing novelty for novelty’s sake, or polishing “relevance” for marketing copy; he’s curating a personal necessity.

The intent is practical and slightly defiant: I’m done guessing what will land in a hall, on a commission brief, or in the cultural conversation. The subtext is that taste is a muscle, and his is mature enough to trust. “These days” matters, too. It hints at an arc from earlier career pressures - proving modernism credentials, satisfying orchestral politics, meeting expectations attached to his name - toward a late-stage permission slip. The phrase “turn out” is almost anti-romantic, deliberately workmanlike, as if to demystify composition and keep ego out of it. That choice makes the statement feel less like self-mythology and more like craft ethics.

Contextually, it’s a modern musician’s answer to a contemporary bind: classical music’s constant demand to justify itself. Salonen refuses the defensive crouch. He implies that the most honest route to connection is specificity, not focus-grouped accessibility. If he can’t genuinely want to hear it, why should anyone else?