Alfred Brendel

By the time the Austrian pianist Alfred Brendel retired from concert-giving in 2008, aged 77, he was universally regarded as one of the world’s greatest pianists. His path to eminence was, however, far from conventional. Although Brendel—born in Wizemberk, Czechoslovakia, in 1931—took piano lessons as a boy, he was largely self-taught from age 16 onward, and avoided the glitzy competition circuit viewed by many young pianists as a path to stardom. Adopting a slower-burn approach, Brendel’s serious, self-effacing style of playing gradually gained him admiring audiences. Between 1958 and 1964, he became the first pianist to record Beethoven’s complete solo piano music (for Vox), cementing his international reputation. Although Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert featured constantly in his music-making, Brendel also made acclaimed recordings of Schumann, Liszt, and Brahms, and raised the profile of Haydn’s hitherto underappreciated piano sonatas. Brendel’s cultural interests extended well beyond the piano. He wrote widely on musical subjects, published poetry, and was a gifted painter. His glinting curiosity and lively sense of humor frequently fed into his piano playing, along with a deep vein of feeling that never tipped over into sentimentality. The well-nigh perfect balance Brendel struck between intellect and emotion has been matched by few other classical pianists.