Musical Thoughts and Afterthoughts

Princeton Essays on the Arts

by Alfred Brendel

Lightly Used Condition. Amazon Box2

Genres: Music, Classical Music, Nonfiction

171 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Alfred Brendel was a Czech-born Austrian classical pianist, poet, author, composer, and lecturer noted for his performances of music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert and Franz Liszt. He made three recordings of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas and was the first pianist to record Beethoven's complete works for solo piano.

Reviews

[Lobstergirl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brendel is quite simply a terrific writer on music. What I especially like is that many of his topics anticipate the precise questions and issues that have arisen for me, such as: why should I like Liszt? Why did Liszt write so many (or any) transcriptions and paraphrases? In his discussions of composers, the repertoire, and the act of playing and performing, he's almost uniquely insightful. This book, a compilation of essays mostly published previously in musical journals in the 60s and 70s, contains thoughts on Beethoven (four essays), Schubert (one), Liszt (six), Busoni (three), two on his teacher Edwin Fischer, one on "Coping with Pianos," and an interview done by music writer Jeremy Siepmann.

[Sonja · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and worth-reading collection of Brendel’s thoughts on composers, piano and classical music. It is personal and subjective and thus a wonderful resource to understand his interpretations and choices. I particularly enjoyed his simple and healthy approach to Beethoven and Schubert, while his thoughts about Busoni sparked my interest in listening to his works!
I’m not sure how his strong prejudices towards the music of certain composers make me feel, but his elaborations allowed me to understand better “where he is coming from”.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

To review this at all is a pretense. Parts are too technical for the average listener. The chapter on tuning is enlightening. His insights into Beethoven and Schubert were the reasons for reading the book. I am sufficiently informed.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this over a year ago. It was temporarily purloined from the shelf of a friend of mine with an encyclopedic knowledge of music and a library to match. My favorite quote, of course: While Beethoven composed like an architect, Schubert composed like a sleepwalker.

[Moming]

the best pianist alive writes about his musical thoughts. his poems are even better, which unfortunately are not ubiquitously available in the U.S.