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Music Comes Out of Silence: A Memoir
Andras Schiff is one of the most important pianists of our time. This stimulating account of his life and work, told in two parts, takes readers on an intimate journey from Schiff's childhood in Hungary through to the present day.In conversationw with Martin Meyer, Schiff discusses a diverse range of topics from his experiences with anti-Semitism and communist rule to his musical training with maestros such as Pál Kadosa and Ferenc Rados, as well as his thoughts on playing techniques and musical interpretation.In a collection of Schiff's writings we are enthralled by a guided tour of Bach's 'Goldberg' Variations, sobered by Schiff's public defiance against nationalistic and racist attitudes - to the extent that he refused to perform in Haider's Austria or Orban's Hungary - and delighted by the playful 'Ten Commandments' for concertgoers.More than a memoir, this is a seminal compilation of the thoughts and experiences of one of the greatest musicians of our time, of his inimitable art of making music out of silence.
279 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 2, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 26, 2022
The discursive first half of this 'memoir' is interesting and captures Schiff's voice very well (congratulations to the English edition's translator). The short occasional pieces in the second half were not worth collecting, because the pianist is not a good writer. This would have been a fantastic book had it all consisted of conversation with Schiff.
September 22, 2025
Sir András Schiff’s “Music Comes Out of Silence” is a demanding memoir, bathed in technicalities as regards the pianist’s musical journey is concerned. But, there is more to it than music in the form of an imagination lying dormant underneath every notation that births music out of silence, of the potentiality of performance that propels music from a mere idea to a reality. The political climes during Schiff’s growing up in Hungary, with unsettling anti-Semitism, to stifling communistic regime to racist slurs and xenophobic fundamentalism was claustrophobic to the hilt, forcing the expeditiously prodigious child to escape the Scylla and Charybdis of the left- and right-wing extremism for a life that took him across continents to fulfill the destiny of a living legend in the Western Classical canon. The book is divided into two halves, the first being an exclusive dialogue with the Swiss journalist Martin Meyer, with the last chapter spanning a little over a hundred pages giving a vivid account of the Schiff’s personality, and musical inspirations, beginning with Johannes Brahms as his childhood hero to cyclical performances of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Bartók via the grossly misleading condescension of Mendelssohn.
The memoir has its share of humaneness, wit, and inordinate poignancy. To take an extract from a chapter devoted to Annie Fischer I part two of the memoir, the supremely gifted pianist who not only could make the instrument sing, but also speak, would practice with the autobiographist through the night in a room filled with the fog of her chain-smoking habit, and give sermons on why she hated the caricature of piano playing that laid stress on the mechanics rather than the technique. The simplicity-personified Annie eventually mirrored what the poet Rilke termed as dying her own death. To quote Schiff,
“She was listening to Bach’s St. John Passion on the radio, and passed away during the broadcast. A beautiful way to go.”
This still gives me the goosebumps, and is as powerful and haunting a narrative as James Kaplan describing the death of Marlyn Monroe in the mammoth biography of Frank Sinatra.
The memoir begins with silence and ends with silence. But, where silence thoroughly captivates is Schiff’s take on Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The thirty-variation cycle is known for immense technical demands, requiring virtuosity for rapid hand crossings and intricate passage-work. The variations, incidentally my first exposure to the works of Schiff, are complexly woven through an intellectual depth, and the control of counterpoint and harmony, touching and often wounding the emotional breadth exposed through uncertain expressive outbursts, or better still, silence. Two particular variations are of note here, viz. Variation 15 and Variation 21. The 30 variations are divided into 10 group of each, with every group containing a brilliant virtuoso toccata-like piece, an elegant piece and a contrapuntal canon. The fifteenth variation is the music of the deepest sorrow and lamentation characterized by the slurred semiquavers sounding like sighs. It is in the final interval where the lowest G in the bass joins forces with the highest D in soprano, spreading over a canvas of four and a half octaves, which implies extreme desolation and emptiness between heaven and earth. Silence follows, yet again. Variation 21 is passionate, but about despair, with the bass line’s chromaticism suggesting a wild storm having already built up. In other words, this variation is a fall from daylight into the darkness of an abyss, and complements the 15th Variation with the canon at the 7th and in G minor. With the Goldberg Variations, Schiff hits the peak of Bach’s compositional vocabulary, but is unfortunately criticized for slowing the momentum with obscure rhythmic profiling while toying with the contrapuntal. But the live performance in 2001 far outscores the Decca Recordings of 1983, and is considered his finest rendition, thanks to a clear articulation without using the sustaining pedal.
As regards Mozart, Schiff has attained a near flawless interpretation of Mozart’s sonatas and concertos, both as a soloist and as a conductor. His clarity on the nuances of every note revealing he richness of Mozart’s music is a definitive profundity into the Maestro’s musical insight. With Beethoven, Schiff had a deliberate delay in picking up and playing. He attributes this late-coming to staying true to Beethoven’s original manuscripts that allowed him to play at a tempi aligning with Beethoven’s, despite the variations in speed. But crucially, Schiff brings in the eloquence and expressions of the use of left hand thus scaling depths, and remaining honest to his own human and emotional journey, through the travails of politics and the changing soundscapes of classical canon. This is important to note as many of his former teachers, with whom he learnt structural language of composition had to leave their home country of Hungary after suffering through the iron curtain. While, he met many of them, including Vegh, the damage had become irreparable, which is further compounded by the fact that Viktor Orbán runs the country seeking to make Hungary an ideological centre for an international conservative movement, a deeply problematic development waiting to explode.
The memoir has its share of humaneness, wit, and inordinate poignancy. To take an extract from a chapter devoted to Annie Fischer I part two of the memoir, the supremely gifted pianist who not only could make the instrument sing, but also speak, would practice with the autobiographist through the night in a room filled with the fog of her chain-smoking habit, and give sermons on why she hated the caricature of piano playing that laid stress on the mechanics rather than the technique. The simplicity-personified Annie eventually mirrored what the poet Rilke termed as dying her own death. To quote Schiff,
“She was listening to Bach’s St. John Passion on the radio, and passed away during the broadcast. A beautiful way to go.”
This still gives me the goosebumps, and is as powerful and haunting a narrative as James Kaplan describing the death of Marlyn Monroe in the mammoth biography of Frank Sinatra.
The memoir begins with silence and ends with silence. But, where silence thoroughly captivates is Schiff’s take on Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The thirty-variation cycle is known for immense technical demands, requiring virtuosity for rapid hand crossings and intricate passage-work. The variations, incidentally my first exposure to the works of Schiff, are complexly woven through an intellectual depth, and the control of counterpoint and harmony, touching and often wounding the emotional breadth exposed through uncertain expressive outbursts, or better still, silence. Two particular variations are of note here, viz. Variation 15 and Variation 21. The 30 variations are divided into 10 group of each, with every group containing a brilliant virtuoso toccata-like piece, an elegant piece and a contrapuntal canon. The fifteenth variation is the music of the deepest sorrow and lamentation characterized by the slurred semiquavers sounding like sighs. It is in the final interval where the lowest G in the bass joins forces with the highest D in soprano, spreading over a canvas of four and a half octaves, which implies extreme desolation and emptiness between heaven and earth. Silence follows, yet again. Variation 21 is passionate, but about despair, with the bass line’s chromaticism suggesting a wild storm having already built up. In other words, this variation is a fall from daylight into the darkness of an abyss, and complements the 15th Variation with the canon at the 7th and in G minor. With the Goldberg Variations, Schiff hits the peak of Bach’s compositional vocabulary, but is unfortunately criticized for slowing the momentum with obscure rhythmic profiling while toying with the contrapuntal. But the live performance in 2001 far outscores the Decca Recordings of 1983, and is considered his finest rendition, thanks to a clear articulation without using the sustaining pedal.
As regards Mozart, Schiff has attained a near flawless interpretation of Mozart’s sonatas and concertos, both as a soloist and as a conductor. His clarity on the nuances of every note revealing he richness of Mozart’s music is a definitive profundity into the Maestro’s musical insight. With Beethoven, Schiff had a deliberate delay in picking up and playing. He attributes this late-coming to staying true to Beethoven’s original manuscripts that allowed him to play at a tempi aligning with Beethoven’s, despite the variations in speed. But crucially, Schiff brings in the eloquence and expressions of the use of left hand thus scaling depths, and remaining honest to his own human and emotional journey, through the travails of politics and the changing soundscapes of classical canon. This is important to note as many of his former teachers, with whom he learnt structural language of composition had to leave their home country of Hungary after suffering through the iron curtain. While, he met many of them, including Vegh, the damage had become irreparable, which is further compounded by the fact that Viktor Orbán runs the country seeking to make Hungary an ideological centre for an international conservative movement, a deeply problematic development waiting to explode.
May 12, 2025
A few kinds of readers will find value in Schiff's memoir, including:
1. Admirers of Schiff and people wanting to learn more about him.
2. Pianists and orchestral/chamber musicians.
3. Classical music listeners.
4. Folks interested in music history, musicology, or the intersection of music and politics.
Part 1 documents conversations Schiff had with journalist Martin Meyer over two years. The interview format provides questions and remarks from Meyer, followed by Schiff's responses. Part 2 compiles a set of Schiff's essays, publication prefaces, liner notes, articles, and letters.
As a reader, I value this book for its music-themed information and insight more than the prose or writing style. The "conversations" format felt stilted and staged to me, even though Schiff's replies were rich with ideas.
I especially enjoyed the reflections on music and performance, including composers, chamber music, piano technique, practising, instruments, pedalling, manuscripts, and competitions. Schiff discusses the work of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Schumann, among others.
Michael Johnson says Schiff is known for his impish wit, old-school stagecraft, and prickly opinions. I sympathise with Schiff's critique of modern performers and conductors who are too showy and physically exuberant, but the complaints about German theatre were lost on me. I do hope the "Ten Commandments for concertgoers" was written in jest; the postscript does have a cheeky lilt to it.
1. Admirers of Schiff and people wanting to learn more about him.
2. Pianists and orchestral/chamber musicians.
3. Classical music listeners.
4. Folks interested in music history, musicology, or the intersection of music and politics.
Part 1 documents conversations Schiff had with journalist Martin Meyer over two years. The interview format provides questions and remarks from Meyer, followed by Schiff's responses. Part 2 compiles a set of Schiff's essays, publication prefaces, liner notes, articles, and letters.
As a reader, I value this book for its music-themed information and insight more than the prose or writing style. The "conversations" format felt stilted and staged to me, even though Schiff's replies were rich with ideas.
I especially enjoyed the reflections on music and performance, including composers, chamber music, piano technique, practising, instruments, pedalling, manuscripts, and competitions. Schiff discusses the work of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Schumann, among others.
Michael Johnson says Schiff is known for his impish wit, old-school stagecraft, and prickly opinions. I sympathise with Schiff's critique of modern performers and conductors who are too showy and physically exuberant, but the complaints about German theatre were lost on me. I do hope the "Ten Commandments for concertgoers" was written in jest; the postscript does have a cheeky lilt to it.
October 13, 2023
an excellent musical memoir
For music lovers, especially piano enthusiasts, Andras Schiff’s commentaries and insights are a delight. The first part of the book consists of interviews with Schiff about his life and musical education in Hungary. The second part is a fascinating group of short writings by Schiff about many musical topics, ranging from his opinion about competitions to specific analysis of certain great pieces of music. I really enjoyed and appreciated the entire book.
For music lovers, especially piano enthusiasts, Andras Schiff’s commentaries and insights are a delight. The first part of the book consists of interviews with Schiff about his life and musical education in Hungary. The second part is a fascinating group of short writings by Schiff about many musical topics, ranging from his opinion about competitions to specific analysis of certain great pieces of music. I really enjoyed and appreciated the entire book.
November 14, 2022
Cist o detstvi, mladi a soucasnosti, o myslenkach a nazorech Andrase Schiffa, to je sen. Tento klavirista je pro me jeden z nejvetsich vzoru, v posledni dobe mam trosku pocit, ze se prezentuje jako nejlepsi z nejlepsich, jako jediny povolany provozovat klavirni umeni. Knizka me v tomto nazoru utvrdila, zaroven jsem vsak mela moznost dozvedet se o jeho ceste za karierou profesionalniho pianisty, o tom, co vsechno musel zdolat a dokazat, a za to vsechno v mych ocich zase trochu stoupl.
November 19, 2023
A very good book, containing the pianist's personal story and his thoughts about music, which were collected over the years. It is rare (Alfred Brendel is the exception) to see a book by a concert pianist that is so refreshingly intellectual and written with such broad perspective.
July 31, 2020
Marvellous insights from this wonderful pianist and musician.
February 2, 2021
Disjointed in style but truly insightful. Worth reading
June 11, 2021
An insight of music through the experiences of Andras Schiff. Definitely need a re read to re digest all the information.
July 26, 2022
Sad (and typical), how Hungary has been and is still treating its great talents.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews