Description:
A top-drawer interpreter of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, the pianist Alfred Brendel is famous for his restraint--this brilliant technician never lapses into Romantic fireworks. His first book of poetry evinces a similar modesty. Yet these brief verses, which have been effectively translated from the German by the author and Richard Stokes, also showcase a sneaky and surreal sense of humor. Like the artist he describes in one poem, Brendel is always on the lookout for the comic paradox: "When the dadaist looked into the mirror / he saw some fetching contradictions / himself and his opposite / tomfoolery and method." Not surprisingly, many of the pieces evoke the world of classical music. The title poem asks us to imagine a pianist with a kind of utility finger, capable of clarifying a knotty passage or "beckoning a lady in the third row." Elsewhere Brendel compares the public ardor of concertizing to the more private one of sex, saddling his pianist with a truly formidable case of performance anxiety: "both reviled and spurred on by the public / painstakingly supervised by the author / who / on top of it all / has entrusted the lovers with the burden of dialogue." Still, the author's poetic interests extend considerably beyond the keyboard. One Finger Too Many is infused with a healthy dose of skepticism, and on several occasions Brendel applies the nightstick to organized religion: And once again
the Lord of the Universe
recorded a day of good works
three religious wars launched
several tornadoes let loose
a new brand of pestilence devised
utopias planted into souls
countless children successfully harmed
a good reason
to grant oneself a moment's rest
True, a literary spitball like the above isn't about to shake the convictions of a true believer. But that's not the point. These poems are written to amuse, edify, and tickle the reader's sensibility--banging the pulpit is something that Brendel the poet (and Brendel the pianist) religiously avoids. --James Marcus
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