Education Quote by Kurt Masur

Masur is describing a kind of musical ethics that feels almost old-fashioned now: the performer as custodian, not influencer. Coming from a conductor whose life spanned Nazi Germany, the GDR, and the post-Wall cultural marketplace, the line reads less like prudish fidelity and more like a survival tactic. When politics and ego are constantly trying to colonize art, “respect for every piece” becomes a way to protect meaning from being bent into propaganda or personal branding.

The phrasing “not allowed to add something of her own” is the tell. It’s not that interpretation disappears; it’s that interpretation has to be earned through submission to the score’s internal logic. Masur’s first teacher, an organist, is a perfect emblem here: organ culture is built on service (to liturgy, to tradition, to architecture). An organist doesn’t just “express” in a vacuum; they translate a composer through a specific instrument, in a specific space, often for a community. Devotion becomes discipline.

The subtext is a quiet argument against the romantic myth of the genius performer. Masur is gently rejecting the idea that artistry is decoration layered on top of a work. In his worldview, adding yourself too loudly is a kind of disrespect, even a kind of noise. The real personality shows up in restraint: in the seriousness with which you refuse to treat the piece as raw material for your own story.