Alfred Brendel Quotes

• The word 'listen' contains the same letters as the word 'silent.'

  Alfred Brendel

  I Hate You, Listening Ear, Effective Listening

  41 Copy quote

• If I belong to a tradition it is a tradition that makes the masterpiece tell the performer what he should do and not the performer telling the piece what it should be like, or the composer what he ought to have composed.

  Alfred Brendel

  Pieces, Tradition, Should

  "Alfred Brendel, A Personal 75th Birthday Selection" by Anthony Holden, www.theguardian.com. January 7, 2006.

  18 Copy quote

• Silence... is the essence of the music itself, the vital ingredient that makes it possible for the music to exist at all.

  Alfred Brendel

  Essence, Silence, Ingredients

  19 Copy quote

• Art gives a sense of order, life is basically chaotic, and there's a tension between them. A sense of order comes from chaos and contains a bit of it, but it's the sense of order that is important in a work of art.

  Alfred Brendel

  Art, Order, Giving

  22 Copy quote

• You have to be aware of all the latent possibilities that give a work its special character - its atmosphere, its moods, its contrasts.

  Alfred Brendel

  Character, Giving, Atmosphere

  11 Copy quote

• In his larger forms, Schubert is a wanderer. He likes to move at the edge of the precipice, and does so with the assurance of a sleepwalker. To wander is the Romantic condition; one yields to it enraptured, or is driven and plagued by the terror of finding no escape. More often than not, happiness is but the surface of despair.

  Alfred Brendel

  Moving, Yield, Despair

  Alfred Brendel (2015). “Music, Sense and Nonsense: Collected Essays and Lectures”, p.167, Biteback Publishing

  17 Copy quote

• Silence ought also to be the core of each concert. Remember the anagram: listen = silent.

  Alfred Brendel

  Silence, Remember, Silent

  "An A-Z of the piano: Alfred Brendel's notes from the concert hall" by Alfred Brendel, www.theguardian.com. August 31, 2013.

  13 Copy quote

• A work of art is like a person: it has more than one soul in its breast.

  Alfred Brendel

  Art, Soul, Breasts

  7 Copy quote

• I'm coming back to what you said about seeing and listening and hearing. I had to think of a remark that I heard yesterday, somebody came and said ' I saw you concert' Can we change the usage of, of this phrase please? And I hope that some of the people in our concert tonight will listen and even hear what we are doing!

  Alfred Brendel

  Thinking, Yesterday, People

  52 Copy quote

• I want to make music. That means I prefer the Steinway piano.

  Alfred Brendel

  Mean, Piano, Want

  10 Copy quote

• You need three or five hands to play Ligeti.

  Alfred Brendel

  Hands, Play, Three

  12 Copy quote

• I have a great need to learn what the norm is by dealing with what is not the norm... with the grotesque and the fantastic.

  Alfred Brendel

  Desire, Needs, Fantastic

  8 Copy quote

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