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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.

— Alfred Brendel Studs Terkel (2006)

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More quotes by Alfred Brendel

You need three or five hands to play Ligeti.

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

I am accountable to the composer, but I am also there to communicate something to the listener. I am not delivering a soliloquy, but am somewhere in the middle.

Those who look for contradictions will be amply satisfied. The profession of a performer is full of paradoxes, and he has to learn to live with them. He has to forget himself and control himself; he has to observe the composer's wishes to the letter and create the music on the spot; he has to be part of the music market and yet retain his integrity.

Alfred Brendel (1976)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Alfred Brendel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.