Alfred Brendel Quotes

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

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

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.

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.

You need three or five hands to play Ligeti.

The word ‘listen’ contains the same letters as the word ‘silent.’

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.