Facing the music: Esa-Pekka Salonen

What was the first record you bought?

Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony, conducted by Seiji Ozawa.

What’s your musical guilty pleasure?

Italopop.

If you found yourself with six months free to learn a new instrument, what would you choose?

Theremin, no question.

Is applauding between movements acceptable?

I don’t mind, except when an expressive silence is broken too soon.

What single thing would improve the format of the classical concert?

Lighting. I find the nondescript medium house-lights really boring. Every time I ask if we can dim the auditorium, there’s some irrational reason why it cannot be done, from “health and safety” to “people want to read their programme notes”.

What’s been your most memorable live music experience as an audience member?

There are so many, but here are just a few. Brahms 1 with Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic. (It was as if he was composing the piece before our eyes. Arvid Jansons, who was teaching the conducting class in Helsinki that week, told us the next day: do not try to emulate.) Der Rosenkavalier in Munich with Kleiber (such orgasmic beauty). St Matthew Passion in New York with Rattle, Sellars, the Berliners and some of the finest singers on the planet (left me very shaken and speechless).

We’re giving you a time machine: what period, or moment in musical history, would you travel to and why?

Back to every concert I messed up. A multi-journey project.

Do you enjoy musicals? Do you have a favourite?

A Chorus Line.

Which conductor or performer of yesteryear do you most wish you could have worked with?

I’d give my left arm for 30 minutes with Stravinsky. The right arm for the same amount of time with Beethoven.

What, in your opinion, is the best new piece written in the past 50 years?

Working on it. Might take a while.

What’s the most overrated classical work – is there a warhorse whose appeal you really don’t relate to?

Shostakovich 5. I’m very suspicious of heroic things in general.

Which non-classical musicians would you love to work with?

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Björk. Laura Mvula.

Imagine you’re a festival director here in London with unlimited resources. What would you programme – or commission – for your opening event?

I’d commission 50 new pieces from young composers, to be performed simultaneously in pop-up concerts on tube stations around London.

What do you sing in the shower?

You don’t want to know.

It’s late, you’ve had a few beers, you’re in a karaoke bar. What do you choose to sing?

Either a Finnish tango or the Captain’s cheerful tune from Berg’s Wozzeck: “Wozzeck ist ein guter Mensch, aber er hat kein Moral, Moral, Moraaaaaaal!”

• Esa Pekka-Salonen conducts three concerts with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Lang Lang as soloist, on 26 November, 1 December and 3 December at the Royal Festival Hall, London.