Tributes to Alfred Brendel
With the sad news of Alfred Brendel’s death on 17 June at the age of 94, musicians, colleagues and journalists around the world have paid tribute to the great pianist
Paul Lewis
‘Alfred Brendel was my teacher, mentor and an endless source of inspiration for more than 30 years and his passing is an enormous loss not only for music, but also on a personal level for those of us who were fortunate enough to be guided and touched by his wisdom and insight, of which he gave so generously and selflessly.
‘To say he changed my life would be an understatement. As a young pianist in the 1990s, working with him was a transformational experience. He opened doors to ways of thinking, feeling and reacting to music that were nothing short of electrifying, always with maximum intensity and often spiced with that familiar wicked sense of humour of his. He was a colossal figure in my life, and what I owe him is simply immeasurable.’
Steven Osborne
‘His recordings were one of the formative influences of my childhood. What a genius for characterisation he had, and what a heady combination of intellect, wit, and deep feeling. A generous man too. Irreplaceable.’
Till Fellner
‘Alfred Brendel was the most important performer of the central European piano repertoire in recent times, especially of the music of the First Viennese School (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) as well as Schubert, Schumann and Liszt.
‘His thorough engagement not only with piano playing, but also with composition, as well as with great literature and art, led him to a profound understanding of music, and he was able to share his passionate appreciation of the great masterpieces with audiences around the world.
‘During his long career, he has brought the task of our profession to a new and assured level of consciousness, significance and dignity, happily accepting his role as a devoted servant of the composers. Rather like a highly skilled actor, he was extremely versatile and was able to convey the widest range of character – from the sublime to the comical – carefully chosen to suit the music he was performing.
‘As one of his pupils, I feel privileged to have learnt from him – the most important thing to have happened to me in my musical life. I will forever be deeply grateful for his kindness, reliability, generosity, and, last but not least, his wonderful sense of humour.’
Simon Rattle
‘It’s hard even to know where to start with Alfred: for any musician of my generation he was simply always there, the very definition of integrity and a kind of unique probing humour.
‘I heard him first in Liverpool, playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto no.22, K482, an unforgettable concert for an impressionable 14-year-old. I could never have imagined then that my first collaboration with him would be in the same city when I was 20. That Beethoven – his first piano concerto – began a long journey of learning and friendship over the subsequent decades. I cannot stress how much I learned from him, or how painfully obvious it was to me just how steep the climb was to be able to come anywhere near to being an adequate partner for him. I remember clearly the sense of being kindly but firmly stretched to beyond my level of musicianship. Immense freedom within a strict framework. I am profoundly grateful that he was willing to carry on pulling me upwards for nearly 40 years!’
Martha De Franciso (recording producer)
‘For twenty years, I had the privilege of working as Alfred Brendel’s record producer and helped him realise the production of many major albums and complete concerto and sonata cycles. Together, we worked to capture his preferred sonic signature – one that became a defining feature of his recorded legacy. As recording technology advanced in the late 20th century – from analog to digital, stereo to surround sound, low to high fidelity – each new development brought questions about how to best produce a recording that incorporated the clarity, character and sonic envelopment that Alfred Brendel’s musical interpretations demanded.
’The recording process reflected Alfred’s artistic integrity, thorough understanding of the composers’ works, and meticulous preparation. Alfred taught me what is important in music, and what is less relevant; he was committed to keeping the music alive and resisted excessive technical manipulations. He was able to show how spontaneity in a well-prepared performance allowed the music to retain a sense of freshness and immediacy.’
Costa Pilavachi (former President of Philips Classics)
‘Alfred Brendel, who died peacefully at home on 17 June, was one of the most consequential pianists of our time. His recordings of the music of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Liszt are standard-setters and to my ears sound as fresh today as when they were made. Alfred avoided gimmicks and believed in presenting the music unembellished of mannerisms and other accoutrements often added by interpreters. Yet there was nothing boringly academic about his playing, suffused as it was with energy and good humour.
‘Alfred was great fun to be with, sporting a famously quirky sense of humour and we had many marvellous dinners over the years where we gossiped ruthlessly about our colleagues in the music world. On more than one occasion, I had to rescue him from unpleasant situations. Two incidents at Tanglewood stand out. Alfred was a visiting soloist with the Boston Symphony, I was the Artistic Administrator and we put Alfred up at one of the most luxurious inns in the Berkshires. The lady manager was enamoured of Alfred’s music, tickled pink that he was staying at her hostelry and she pulled out all the stops. Unfortunately, this included playing Brendel CDs on the hotel PA system while he was there. Eventually, he called me in despair lamenting that he could no longer hide from himself and I had to call the dear lady begging her to shelve her CDs and restore nature’s silence to her lovely inn.’
Richard Morrison
‘Of all the great 20th-century pianists I met, he seemed the most grounded and sane. Perhaps that was because he never went through that pressurised child prodigy upbringing. The son of an itinerant Austrian hotel manager, he hardly heard – let alone performed – music during his wartime childhood. Indeed, he was conscripted to dig trenches. That early experience, I believe, imbued him with two lifelong beliefs. One, he told me, was that “the world is grotesque and absurd”. The other was that, “in an absurd world, manners require one to be graceful”.
‘Those beliefs, I think, accounted for how he interpreted such composers as Liszt, Beethoven and Brahms. He could grapple with the “grotesque” in their music — the psychic storms when the pianist seems to be locked in battle with some beast inside the Steinway. But he was also alive to moments of absurdist humour. “If you can’t make an audience laugh at the end of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op 31 No 1,” he told me, “you should be an organist.” (I don’t think he knew I play the organ.)’
Martin Kettle
‘Brendel, who died this week at his London home at the age of 94, was never best known for his piano pyrotechnics. In performance, he eschewed glitz. While some keyboard virtuosi of earlier times have been noted for their performance mannerisms – Horowitz wiping the piano keys with his handkerchief in mid-performance, Rubinstein playing to the gallery with his exaggerated arm movements – Brendel was straight-backed, concentrated, almost severe.
‘That was the deal. It was the music, not his personality, that the audiences came to hear. Brendel’s technique was of the highest order, but it was always at the service of the music and the listener, not of his own reputation. His piano sound was rich but never overdone, his readings authoritative but never pompous. His performances always had a well-articulated shape and direction, but they were made up of a thousand small choices and touches about phrasing, contrast and tone. He was never an obviously fast player, but as a listener it was hard to keep up with the cascade of detail that always underpinned the whole.’
Markus Hinterhäuser (Artistic Director, Salzburg Festival)
‘Alfred Brendel was already a legend during his lifetime. With astonishing talent and truly universal education, he set incomparable standards as a pianist, a brilliant essayist, a musical thinker, and a speaker. For Alfred Brendel, intellect and sensitivity were not opposites – they were the very state of being for a life that was, in its entirety, a declaration of love to music.’
Imogen Cooper
‘Alfred Brendel was unique in the pantheon of great pianists – inspirational and uncompromising, with a formidable knowledge of literature and art as well as of music. His playing was intense and visionary, his teaching no less so – but dry humour was never far. It was a formidable mixture and his presence will be very greatly missed.’
