He is not going to do any more cycles of the Beethoven sonatas, and as far as cycles go will confine himself to the Beethoven concertos. Of these there are quite a few in sight. "The first one will be in New York with Kurt Masur, in March; then there are the concertos (not in a cycle, but in individual concerts) with Abbado in Berlin; and later on I shall do cycles with Marriner and the Academy of St Martin's in Paris and in London. I did them with Neville about 18 months ago in Montpelier and that was a very pleasant experience because the orchestra really tried to understand what I wanted and was very cooperative. And then I have the prospect of something in Munich and Vienna.

"I just don't feel physically inclined to take the responsibility for very large cycles in the future. What I may do is perhaps a few programmes of Haydn, Mozart and Schubert, for instance, going through the late Mozart sonatas. I want to concentrate on these matters more, and also after a longish interval to go back to some of the Schubert works, with refreshed senses. Work-in-progress, as always, yes. And there's still a case for the rehabilitation of Haydn. My dream of a full Haydn recital I have not yet realized; it may still come.

"I also want to spend some time with the Schumann Concerto again. I'm very unsatisfied with what I have done so far and have a number of performances lined up next year to see if I can do better. It's one of those frustrating pieces which seem so obvious on the page and yet, with the first two movements particularly, I so often find there are things still to be desired. The last movement seems to come much more easily, to me at any rate. So I'll try again.

"As to completely new things, I don't know yet. It has partly to do with my condition - - that studying in front of the score is very bad for my back. So I'm playing less repertory than before, within a season; I concentrate on certain things. But I don't want to preclude anything new. I'm very interested in György Kurtág's music, for instance, and my son has been with him at least four times in his chamber-music classes: Kurtág is a great and relentless teacher, and fortunately my son can take it -- some people can't. So maybe I shall dare to do something! And I'm going back to a bit of Busoni (no, not the Fantasia contrappuntistica), and some late Liszt."

There would seem to be plenty here to keep him fruitfully occupied, and Gramophone readers, interested.

"And the Schoenberg Concerto should be coming out finally, which I recorded last year [we are talking in 1995] with Michael Gielen and the Südwestfunk Orchestra. [I can't believe my ears and am in confusion: Brendel's recording of it, with the collaborators he has just mentioned, was the first record of his I possessed, when I was still at school.] We did it after a tour through some festivals. Have you read my article on it in the New York Review of Books? I mention in it the strange coincidence that, 36 years after the first recording with Michael Gielen and the Südwestfunk Orchestra in the Hans Rosbaud Studio in Baden-Baden, there we were, the same people, if not the same members of the orchestra, doing the same piece in the same wretched hall! Well, it may show how times have progressed, how the work now comes much more easily to orchestras. To conductors too. I think there are a number of conductors I would volunteer to play this concerto with, whereas the Beethoven concertos... Yes, I've had a very long association with the Schoenberg Concerto. It's a problem piece but I would defend it." His article, which is at once a reasoned critique and a compelling defence, is excellent reading.

"One day, if I can find the time to listen to all my recordings, I intend to write a little article of recommendation as to what I think people should listen to. When I was incapacitated three years ago, I started doing some listening but I didn't get anywhere near the end. And it was partly a depressing experience but fortunately there were some redeeming features, and I want to put those on paper."

I believe Schoenberg used to say the best a composer could hope for when contemplating earlier pieces was the reflection that one had liked them at that time; and I suppose Brendel must feel much the same when surveying his own line of work. He did not choose the contents of the 25 -disc box but when it was put together wanted to suggest changing a few things. "When I saw the list, I particularly asked for my last version of the Liszt Sonata to be included, and not the last-but-one, which was done in the early days of digital recording and the sound, to me, is too clinical (also I now find the middle section, as I played it then, too slow). But this latest recording is a performance I personally enjoy; and again, because I feel that after living with the Liszt Sonata since my nineteenth year it has got somewhere where I more or less want it to be, within my possibilities. Having now left the piece for good I had the impression that I had come to the end of the process. I also like the recording; I think it sounds very good. In the last years this Liszt Sonata has been one of my performances that has pleased me more."

I press him to find other things he approves of but he says he is not easy to please. "I like some of the Haydn performances actually, especially the big E flat Sonata, No. 52. And there's the Busoni Toccata which was on an Amnesty International record -- a performance I'm relatively proud of because it's one of the hardest pieces I've played, pianistically.

"As to my Schubert recordings, not just the ones in this special box, I particularly like the last movement of the late A major Sonata [D959]. There are very few things among my Schubert recordings that please me as much as I would like. This is one instance; the other is the first movement of the C major Sonata [D840] in the newer set; also some of the Impromptus in the newer set.

"As to Beethoven, well, the two live performances of the Hammerklavier Sonata and the Diabelli Variations. There I do recognize myself!"

The final reckoning is likely to be a much longer list than this, but the "little article of recommendation" he talked of writing one day is, I imagine, still some way off. If so, tant mieux. Brendel may have said his last word about some works but he feels he has much unfinished business elsewhere and I am sure we shall have a lot of pleasure in the coming years as he attends to it. All power to him.