Cursing bagels - Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel is universally acknowledged as one of the world's leading pianists. He is also the author of several books, including Alfred Brendel on Music, The Veil of Order and One Finger Too Many. Cursing Bagels is his second collection of poetry, and is by turns witty, plaintive, dadaist and grounded. With these English versions translated by the author with Richard Stokes, Brendel affirms his position as one of the most curious and playful minds in the business.'Alfred Brendel's poems are a delight. His voice is wonderfully eccentric, droll, sly, mischievous - the same brilliant fingers making a new sound.' Harold Pinter'Brendel has produced a collection of texts that will join the select ranks of genuinely comic literature.' Hans Zender, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'I have hugely enjoyed Alfred Brendel's unexpected One Finger Too Many. Brendel's poems are trapdoors into his dream-life, witty, Dadaesque and subversive - especially of his own grandeur as a musician.' A. Alvarez, Times Literary Supplement