Quotes from Alfred Brendel

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

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

Self-discovery is a slower process but a more natural one.

The word LISTEN contains the same letters as the word SILENT.

You need three or five hands to play Ligeti.

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

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.