Alfred Brendel

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Biography

Alfred Brendel Order of the British Empire|KBE (born 5 January 1931) is an Austrian pianist , born in Czechoslovakia and a resident of the United Kingdom. He is also a poet and author.

Biography

Brendel was born in Wiesenberg, Czechoslovakia , now Loucná nad Desnou , Czech Republic, to a non-musical family. They moved to Zagreb when Brendel was six, and later to Graz , where they lived during World War II , towards the end of which the 14-year old Brendel was sent to Yugoslavia to dig trenches. However, he developed frostbite and was taken to hospital. Brendel began piano lessons when he was six with Sofija Deželic, and at 14 he studied piano with Ludovica von Kaan and composition in the Graz Conservatory for the next two years, but otherwise had little formal music education.

After the war, Brendel composer|composed music, as well as continuing to play the piano and to painting|paint . However, he never had more formal piano lessons and although he attended masterclasses with Edwin Fischer and Eduard Steuermann , he was largely self-taught.

Brendel gave his first public recital in Graz at the age of 17., Grove Music Online , 2007. Accessed 3 June 2007. He called it "The Fugue In Piano Literature", and as well as fugue|fugal works by Johann Sebastian Bach , Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt , it included some of Brendel's own compositions. However, he gave up composing shortly after this to concentrate on the piano. In 1949 he won 4th prize in the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition|Ferruccio Busoni Piano Competition in Bolzano , Italy and moved to Vienna the following year. At the age of 21, he made his first record, Sergei Prokofiev 's Piano Concerto No. 5 (Prokofiev)|Piano Concerto No. 5 . He went on to make a string of other records, including three complete sets of the Ludwig van Beethoven piano sonata s (one on Vox Records and two on Philips Records ). He was the first performer to record the complete solo piano works of Beethoven. He has also recorded works by Liszt, Brahms (including Brahms' concertos), Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert . Unlike most classical pianists, Brendel has recorded very little by Frédéric Chopin other than the polonaises. An important collection of Alfred Brendel is the complete Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart piano concertos recorded with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields , which is included in the Phillips 180 CD complete Mozart Edition.

Brendel recorded extensively for the Vox Records|Vox label , providing them his first of three sets of the complete Beethoven sonatas. He did not secure a major recording contract until the 1970s, nor did he play much outside Austria. His breakthrough came after a recital of Beethoven at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the day after which three major record labels called his agent. Around this time he moved to Hampstead , London, where he still resides. Since the 1970s, Brendel has recorded for Philips Classics Records .

Brendel has been married twice. His first marriage, from 1960 to 1972, was to Iris Heymann-Gonzala, and they had a daughter, Doris. In 1975, Brendel married Irene Semler, and the couple have three children; a son, Adrian, who is a cellist, and two daughters, Katharina and Sophie.

In April 2007, Brendel was one of the initial signatories of the "Appeal for the Establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations"., Campaign for a UN Parliament , 2007. Accessed 5 January 2011.

In 2009, Brendel was featured in the award-winning German-Austrian documentary Pianomania , about a Steinway & Sons piano tuner, which was directed by Lilian Franck and Robert Cibis . The film premiered theatrically in North America, where it was met with positive reviews by The New York Times , as well as in Asia and throughout Europe, and is a part of the Goethe-Institut catalogue.

Work

Brendel is regarded as one of the most thoughtful interpreters of classical Germanic works by such composers as Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven , Franz Schubert|Schubert and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart . He plays relatively few 20th century works, but is closely associated with Arnold Schoenberg 's Piano Concerto (Schoenberg)|Piano Concerto . Toward the end of his concert career he stopped playing many of the most physically demanding pieces in the repertoire, such as the Piano Sonata No. 29 (Beethoven)| Hammerklavier Sonata of Beethoven, owing to problems with arthritis .

Critical reaction to Brendel's playing has been mixed. While he has been lauded by Michael Steinberg (music critic)|Michael Steinberg as "the new Artur Schnabel|Schnabel ", critic Harold C. Schonberg noted that some critics and specialists accused the pianist of "pedanticism".The Great Pianists from Mozart to the Present, Harold C. Schonberg, Simon & Schuster, Second Edition, 1987, ISBN 0-671-63837-8 Brendel's playing is sometimes described as being "cerebral", and he has said that he believes the primary job of the pianist is to respect the composer's wishes without showing off himself, or adding his own spin on the music:

"I am responsible to the composer, and particularly to the piece".

As well as his former mentor and teacher, Edwin Fischer , he cites Alfred Cortot , Wilhelm Kempff , and the Conducting|conductor s Bruno Walter and Wilhelm Furtwängler as particular influences.

In recent years, Brendel has worked with younger pianists such as Paul Lewis (pianist)|Paul Lewis , Mark Gasser , Roberto Carnevale , Andrew von Oeyen , Till Fellner and, most recently, Kit Armstrong . He has also performed in concert and recorded with his son Adrian.

In November 2007, Brendel announced that he would retire from the concert platform after his concert of 18 December 2008 in Vienna, which featured him as soloist in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9 (Mozart)|Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat; the orchestra (the Vienna Philharmonic ) was conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras . His final concert in New York was at Carnegie Hall on 20 February 2008, with works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. Since his debut at the Carnegie Hall on 21 January 1973 he has appeared there 81 times, and in 1983 he became only the second pianist to perform the complete cycle of Beethoven's piano sonatas at the Hall.

Brendel has been Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music since 1972.

Publications

Brendel is also a published poet and author. His books include:

Musical Thoughts and Afterthoughts (Essays) (1976)

Music Sounded Out (1990)

One Finger Too Many (Poetry) (1998)

Alfred Brendel on Music (collected essays) (2001)

Me, of All People: Alfred Brendel in Conversation with Martin Meyer (2002) (UK edition: The Veil of Order )

Cursing Bagels (Poetry) (2004)

Awards

Honorary Knight of the Order of the British Empire (KBE; 1989)

Honorary Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford

Sonning Award (2002; Denmark)

Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (2004)

Praemium Imperiale (2009)

Voted into the Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone Hall of Fame (2012)

Recordings

Alfred Brendel - Unpublished Live and Radio Performances 1968-2001

Great Pianists of the 20th Century - Alfred Brendel III

Copyright Citations

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1. Ian Bostridge 2. Wilhelm Kempff 3. Guadalajara 4. Dietrich Fischer Dieskau 5. Joseph Haydn 6. Vienna Philharmonic

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Alfred Brendel

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