The most wonderful thing about playing music -
two most wonderful things about playing music -
is that no matter how much you learn,
and how much you open your brain
and get additional knowledge, with understanding,
since you deal with sound,
the next morning you start from scratch.
And you get a wonderful combination of more knowledge
and nothing materially there to show for it.
Only the ability to find the courage in itself
to start again from scratch with more knowledge than the day before.
I think this is a very positive thing . . .
I am rather happy, I would say almost proud of the fact
that I attempt - I don't achieve - attempt to play every concert
as if it was both the first and the last.
Daniel Barenboim, Reith Lectures 2006: In the Beginning was Sound
