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If you, like me, despair of the desperate need to brand all classical music as "music from the feature film" or "as heard on the advert for..." (see ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Maestro for the best way to ruin an otherwise interesting idea), then you'd have loved last night's concert by Alfred Brendel in the Usher Hall.

That's if you were lucky enough to have a ticket - since it was last appearance at the Edinburgh International Festival. Ever.

Brendel is a piano-playing legend. And at 76, long enough in the tooth to say exactly what he thinks, and he frequently does.

No dumbing down of titles for him - this is Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert - just as their composers intended.

Brendel famously berated a member of the audience at a previous festival for leaving their mobile phone on.

Today, he's got it in for the coughers in the audience - and the Usher Hall has its share of them - pausing mid-movement to wag his finger at the culprit, like some disaproving schoolmaster.

We all sit nervously after that, clutching our water bottles and cough sweets, in the hope that we can keep that tickle rising in our throats.

Then there's inappropriate clapping.

The Mozart is not finished when the audience erupts into applause - Brendel sighs and tells the people in the choir loft that the piece has three movements. Sigh.

Not that there's anything schoolteacherish about his playing - an amazing performance which builds up a great swell of applause which results in a standing ovation and three encores.

It's almost as if Brendel doesn't want to leave.

But this is his final concert tour - his last performance will be in Vienna in December, after which he officially retires.

But he's already finding it tough and I'm told he's agreed to do an engagement next year as part of a classical/comedy fundraiser.

Only this time, he won't be playing the piano but reciting poetry.