Lauded pianist and author Alfred Brendel passed away quietly at his home in London on June 17 at the age of 94. He gained fame for his sensitive interpretations of works by Haydn, , Beethoven, , Brahms and Liszt, among others.
Brendel was born on January 5, 1931 in northern Moravia in the present-day . The boy of German, Austrian, Italian and Slavic heritage grew up on the Adriatic coast in what is now . He went to school in Zagreb, studied at the Conservatory in Graz, Austria, then moved to Vienna in 1950 and to in 1970, which was his home until his death.
“I’m not somebody who looks for or needs roots,” Brendel once said. “I want to be as cosmopolitan as possible. I prefer to be a paying guest. That’s a lesson learned in the war.”
A couple of years after World War II ended, he gave his first concert at age 17 and a year later won the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition in Italy.
Decades of soon followed for which Brendel gained several distinctions: Three honorary doctorates from the universities of London, Oxford and Yale, and numerous prizes including the Ernst von Siemens and the Herbert von Karajan awards, for lifetime achievement at the MIDEM Classical Awards in Cannes, and Germany’s in October 2016.
He was made an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1989 for his “outstanding services to music in Britain,” was awarded the Légion d’Honneur in 2004, and received the highest rank in the Order of Merit of the German Federal Republic in 2007.
In addition to his prolific output onstage, Brendel wrote numerous poems and essays and published books including “Music, Sense and Nonsense” in September 2015. He is widely regarded as a successful literary figure, as well as a .
“I’ve always had a need not only to read but also to write,” he once said. “In my younger years, I painted for a while. Now I find visual perception increasingly important. I go to museums, exhibitions, to the movies and the theater.”
Philosopher at the piano
During Brendel’s long and luminous career, critics often praised the lightness and aplomb of his playing style. With minimal body language and a dose of modesty, the “philosopher at the piano” — tall, gaunt and with thick horn-rimmed glasses — placed himself in the service of the composer.
Yet, as The Guardian newspaper once observed, the pianist was “not a passive recipient of the composer’s commands.”
“I often feel like a character actor,” explained Brendel in an interview with DW in 2002. “I like — as far as possible — to slip into different roles.” Brendel thus executed far more than just a blind trust in the score, once giving a possible explanation for that, too: “The years I spent under made me immune to blind trust.”
The notes he played and that are preserved on record and CD have left their mark on generations of musicians and music lovers. “Music that is not played, but seems to happen all by itself,” are the words Brendel found to describe two musicians he highly revered: his teacher Edwin Fischer and the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler.
That description might also apply to his own expansive body of work included on 114 CD releases.
A few choice composers
He was and remains an artist with a wide repertoire, even if he has his favorites.
During the 1960s, he became the first pianist ever to record the complete works of Ludwig von Beethoven. The recordings are widely considered to be among the best in existence. Schubert, Haydn, , Liszt, Busoni and were also among his other favorite composers.
In later years, Brendel focused on fewer composers, explaining to DW in 2002: “If you play the right pieces, the ones worth spending a life with, they become sources of strength that always radiate new energy and regenerate the performer’s powers.”
A last act
Brendel ended his 60-year concert career nearly two decades ago. His farewell performance at the Vienna Philharmonic on December 18, 2008, was voted one of the 100 greatest cultural moments of the decade by The Daily Telegraph.
Shortly afterward, he suffered an acute hearing loss, and was only able to hear distorted tones. His “retirement” however saw him traveling extensively to give lectures on music, read from the eleven books he has penned, recite his own poems, and hold master classes for young pianists or string quartets.
And throughout, he retained his wry sense of humor.
“If one had to hear incessantly in paradise, I’d ask for leave and the occasional visit to Hell,” he once said regarding life after death.
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