There was a full house in the Baillie Gifford Main Theatre, where Alfred Brendel was joined by his co-author Professor Michael Morley, of the University of South Australia and Jonathan Mills, who apart from being the Director of the Edinburgh International Festival, is also himself a pianist and composer. The event was supported by the Morton Charitable Trust.
In his introduction Jonathan Mills said it felt strange to be with Alfred Brendel on stage where he was reading from his book and not playing in concert! He explained that the book by Brendel and Morley, "A Pianist's A-Z" was a gathering of selected comments based on each letter of the alphabet.
The session would start with a number of readings and the authors had agreed to take the letters of Brendel's name, but take them in retrograde. So we started with 'l' and Michael Morley gave a reading from some of the comments in the book. It was striking the entertaining way that the authors had written their comments with many amusing references. The book is clearly one to savour and is one that could be dipped into almost at random.
There was one reference to the German music teacher who said in heavily accented English, "Yes, that was good, but you can still give me more!" Or the reference to the question whether, "the singer is actually singing from inside the piano or from the outside?"
Then there was a lovely reference to a particular pianist who, "played the piano twice as fast as the pianola, however, the pianola actually plays with twice the emotion!"
Mills asked for requests from the book or questions of which there were many; Brendel was asked if he had a favourite composer? "Of course", he replied, "Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn........! " All the composers!
Brendel said he did not now play any more concerts as he decided to give up while he could still perform well, however, he said that he played at home privately. Sometimes he played as well as before, but he now finds it difficult to control his wrists due to arthritis.
This was a lovely, friendly occasion and Brendel's personality came over extremely well and he made many new friends in the audience. His book which he wrote with Michael Morley will certainly be a gem for music lovers and particularly for pianists.
A Pianist's A-Z by Alfred Brendel (Faber and Faber, 2013)