The Austrian pianist Alfred Brendel is dead – DiePresse.com

Philosopher on the grand piano also liked to call him, the great Austrian pianist who said goodbye as a concert pianist in 2008, but still attracted a large audience with lectures and readings afterwards. Above all, however, Alfred Brendel was one of the most important interpreters of the classic and romantic piano music of his time, exceptionally, among other things, through the almost complete, grandiose recording of the piano works Ludwig van Beethoven.

In Wiesenberg, Czech Loucna, in Northern Moravia, Alfred Brendel was born on January 5, 1931, and he experienced his childhood years in Yugoslavia; When he was a teenager, the family moved to Graz in 1943. There he studied piano at Ludovika from Kaan and received private composition lessons from Artur Michl. He took the state examination in the piano in Vienna, his debut in 1948 as a pianist in Graz, in 1949 he won the Busoni competition in Bolzano: it was the beginning of his international career. In 1950 he moved to Vienna, in 1971 to London.

In the rank of a beak, Kempf

As an interpreter, Brendel was repeatedly placed in the rank of greats such as Artur Schnabel, Wilhelm Kempff or Edwin Fischer (in which he did several master classes). He focused more and more on the music of the Viennese classicon Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, continued to develop again in the new examination of the same pieces. Not only the solo, but also the chamber music activity was essential for Alfred Brendel -and the song accompaniment -many recordings with singers such as Dietrich Fischer -Dieskau, Eberhard Waechter, Hermann Prey or Matthias Goerne. Faithful to work was a central concept of his artistic self -image. As he said, Brendel did not want to « understand what he should have composed » to the composer.

In addition, Brendel dealt with music with music for decades, and art, literature and architecture also had great interest. His texts have been published in several anthologies. After retiring from concert life, he continued to work as an author and lecturer, taught pianists and chamber musicians and gave master classes. In 2016, an edition with 114 CDs was published. It contains all the recordings that were created at Philips. In the same year, Brendel was also awarded the Echo Classic for his life’s work. (Red.)