Success Quote by Kurt Masur

Masur’s line lands with the plainspoken authority of someone who watched generations walk onto the podium and either claim the room or get swallowed by it. He’s not romanticizing ego; he’s describing a job where hesitation is audible. A conductor doesn’t just interpret a score in private. They transmit decisions in real time through gesture, breath, and timing, persuading a roomful of highly trained adults to move as one. In that setting, confidence isn’t a personality trait so much as a working tool.

The phrasing matters: “confident enough” implies a threshold, not bravado. Masur is pointing to the minimum dose of certainty required to make an orchestra feel safe. Musicians will forgive plenty - odd tempi, imperfect balance, even a risky idea - if they sense the person in front knows what they want and isn’t asking the ensemble to read their mind. The subtext is a little unsentimental: talent alone doesn’t conduct. Authority does.

There’s also an institutional reality baked in. “Young conductors” operate under a microscope, in a culture where reputations get made quickly and employment depends on first impressions. Success “very often” follows confidence because orchestras, managers, and audiences reward clarity; they equate steadiness with competence. Masur, who led major orchestras and carried real civic responsibility in Leipzig during the GDR era, understood that leadership is partly performance. Not theater for its own sake, but the visible calm that lets everyone else do their best work.