Alexis Weissenberg

"I believe that the big duty of an artist is, first of all, to become familiar with oneself, in order to be able to throw away what is excessive and to show only what is best.

We don’t discover the music, we discover ourselves in the music. That is a big difference. For me, the first language is the piano. The first sentimental feeling is the piano. If I love, I play. If I don’t love, I’m unable to play the piano.

It was back then, when I started working with Vladigerov, that I knew subconsciously that I was in my own truth, which is, that it will always be this way: with or without success,

I’ll always play the piano, I’ll always try to do it better and I’ll always try to move deeply someone else.

From the beginning, and it is still true today, If I come on stage, it’s to give something to someone else. It’s not to show off, it’s not to feel the 3000 people in the audience. I think that in a concert hall there is always at least one person who adores music and who needs it and this person has come because he needs to feel better during the concerto.

And, if one isn’t an idiot, he must know that, the comfort of this person is worth the trouble of travelling to the other end of the world. And that has remained an obsession."