Self-Portrait with Russian Piano Quotes

“The mortal sin with Schubert is trying to play him perfectly. It makes no sense, none at all. You have to do the opposite, you have to--how shall I put it--it's more like you have to play him clumsily, a little tipsily, or better yet, drunkenly, helplessly, shakily, almost ignorantly, with an understanding, an inkling at least of an era in which people, even if they did cut loose and dance, still felt shame, still blushed. With Schubert there's a lot of keeping silent. Everything is directed inward. I knew enough people who got quieter and quieter when they drank; Schubert did it when he composed. This was someone who had no idea who he was, or at least he didn't know that he was endowed with great genius. I don't want to hear about immortality. You have to have it in your heart, and in your wrist.
...
Often, when I wake up, in the morning or in the afternoon after a little nap, and then especially, I have the feeling of having been dead, a strong, not even unpleasant feeling. That's how you should play Schubert.

[Suvorin]”
― Wolf Wondratschek, Self-Portrait with Russian Piano

“Bach, he [Suvorin] said, was a person's best ally in the battle against despair, against the thought of how immeasurably great one's solitude is in the endlessness of the universe.”
― Wolf Wondratschek, Self-Portrait with Russian Piano