Gideon Toeplitz leaves as manager of the Pittsburgh Symphony. “I made two major mistakes in big chunks. One is something everyone else in the world made, not only the orchestral world. Look at the airlines. We thought the good times would last. And nobody thought the downturn would last as long as it has, and some people are saying it will last eight years. Maybe I pushed too hard, first with myself and therefore with others, to get where I wanted to get. I was ambitious for the Pittsburgh Symphony. We did 15 tours. Maybe 12 would have been enough. Some things I pushed artistically would have come two years later, anyway. So what?”