In the concert hall, each motionless listener is part of the performance. The concentration of the player charges the electric tension in the auditorium and returns to the playLIer magnified. I like the fact that "LISTEN" is an anagram of "SILENT". Silence is not something that is there before the music begins and after it stops. It is the essence of the music itself, the vital ingredient that makes it possible for the music to exist at all. It's wonderful when the audience is part of this productive silence.
~ Alfred Brendel in "The New Yorker" 4/1/96 thanks to B. Stockard
Music has a divine message and messenger of life. It was quintessentially the "Quickening art" -- quickening my soul with this my body, so that suddenly, spontaneously, I was quickened into motion, my own perceptual and kinetic melody, quickened into life by the inner life of music. I was carried ahead by the ongoing musical stream.
