How does one continue to delight audiences with unforgettable recitals after several career decades? One of the secret recipes consists in taking the time to allow one’s ability to slowly ripen. Alfred Brendel is undoubtedly an artist who succeeded in doing so, in his own incomparable way. One of the most well-known pianists influenced by Brendel’s approach is Imogen Cooper. Gramophone magazine praised her Schubert cycle for a “nearly perfect balance between heart and head”, with which she “places her expressive technique and musical personality entirely in the composer’s service”. The daughter of a musicologist and music critic not only convinces her audience with grand gestures, but with finely nuanced musicianship as well. “Playing music on a deep, spiritual level can have a healing effect”, she remarks. “We are capable of perceiving music on thirty different levels; that is a profound experience, and particularly in a world as full of fear and anxiety as ours, it can be a great comfort to share that experience in a closed setting with like-minded fellow human beings.”