Brendel and... Band-Aids?

[vviola]

I've watched multiple videos of Brendel performing today, and I occasionally see (unless I need glasses) what appears to be a Band-Aid on his finger. The most noticeable example is here (here it seems he has three; one on his thumb, index, and middle finger):

Anyone know why he does this? Does he think that it improves his tone or what?

[thoven_liszt]

Maybe he hurt his fingers? Boris Berezovsky played the Mephisto Valse no. 1 at a recital with a band-aid on his thumb from an injury.

[ted]

I could hazard a wild guess; that he had a couple of hangnails he had failed to notice and  cut, and they had become sore but he couldn't avoid playing. Once they are aggravated or infected those things really ruin playing. Tight band-aids do enable you to put up with them, at least for a short time.

[nearenough]

If you engage in "hard" playing sometime the fingernail tip will bend or crack and split off horizontally leaving a living underlying tissue layer exposed, painful, and and sometimes bleeding. That is the reason for shoring up the exposed fingertip to further injury and pain.

I swear I saw a bandage on Horowitz's fifth left hand finger in a TV broadcast.

When I was in college I met a good pianist who lost part of a finger during an armed conflict ("war") and used a slide-on appliance with no noticeable detrimental effect. He played Bach's "Italian Concerto" very well with it.

[horowitzian]

IIRC, Brendel suffers from problems with weak fingernails that split easily; hence the band-aids.

[jinfiesto]

When i was practicing a lot, I had the same sorts of issues. The nail can start to separate from the finger. Although I rarely used band-aids, I found myself putting super glue on the tips of my fingers frequently.