'Make yourself cultivated, that's the most important thing. They are so uncultured, they don't know anything. They play a Beethoven sonata, but they don't know the string quartets. They don't know the Missa Solemnis. They don't even know the other sonatas. But I would recommend to avoid listening to too much piano. Listen to other music, go to the opera. If you don't have the money, go to the library. They have more than 20,000 CDs here, videos, scores, books in all languages. Do it. It's the only way.

"If you are not cultivated, you can hear that when you play. I can hear that immediately. After two notes. Spend nights listening to The Ring. When you play Bénédiction de Dieu dans le solitude, which I am going to play in Dublin, probably one of the greatest pieces by Liszt, the most inspired, the most orchestral, the most moving, poetic . . . how can you play that if you don't have the Wagner sound in mind, the way of sounding the chords, the way of making the crescendo? It will sound ridiculous. It will sound like one more Liszt piano piece."