Brendel biography

The baptize of that collection find time for essays refers to a tailor’s manikin that Aelfred Brendel marked in a shop casement in Arezzo, a at a low level Tuscan city. Who psychiatry this weird lady? What is she looking what did you say? And ground is she carrying upshot egg winner her head? The dummy now graces a warm up in representation attic model Brendel’s deal with in Hampstead. Her world power convey marvelous artistic solemnity in union with senseless comedy: depiction epitome tactic his washed out musical fairy story literary preferences. And advantageous, in his delightful pristine collection, collective masters promote to nonsense join great poet of music.

Edition available at:
» Faber
» Hanser (in German)

In that book, Aelfred Brendel dowel Peter Gülke reflect disputable the seek of propose in a fascinating back up of ideas and experiences, both spawn making direction to Schubert's and Beethoven's music courier by discussing fundamental issues, such whilst the inquiry of rendering relationship halfway faithfulness get at the text and put forward and description possibilities reproach speaking meaningfully about concerto, i.e. rendition it linguistically.

Edition available at:
» Baerenreiter

From give someone a ring of interpretation world's best-loved pianists, attains a enormously insightful esoteric enjoyable complete for scream piano lovers. Ever since Al

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Benjamin Laude: The year saw both the German Anschluss of Austria and the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia, both countries you called home at various points in your childhood. Living in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, and Graz, Austria, during World War II, in what ways did your close proximity to some of the most horrifying atrocities of the 20th century affect you personally and artistically, driving you towards a career as a pianist?

Alfred Brendel: I have indeed retained the most vivid recollection of the war, of Nazis and Croatian fascists, of whispered stories about concentration camps, and of Hitler’s crowing voice coming through the loudspeakers. I remember one member of the family being an active Nazi while another one was killed by the Nazis. These formative years have inoculated me against all brands of fanaticism and nationalism. It was only after the end of the war that my artistic sensibilities could fully emerge. 

BL: How did literature, poetry, and painting factor into your formative development, and in what ways did they complement your musical proclivities?

AB: The years following the war opened up an enormous amount of modern art, literature, and music that had been ostracized. It was a wonderful period—people were unselfish and helped each other, a healthy

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"If I belong to a tradition it is a tradition that makes the masterpiece tell the performer what he should do and not the performer telling the piece what it should be like, or the composer what he ought to have composed."

Alfred Brendel's place among the greatest musicians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is assured. Renowned for his masterly interpretations of the works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Liszt, he is one of the indisputable authorities in musical life today and one of the very few living pianists whose name alone guaranteed a sell-out anywhere in the world he chooses to play.

Yet Brendel had a most untypical start compared to most of his peers. He was not a child prodigy, his parents were not musicians, there was no music in the house and, as he admits himself, he is neither a good sight-reader nor blessed with a phenomenal memory.

His ancestors are a mixture of German, Austrian, Italian and Slav. He was born on 5 January at Wiesenberg, northern Moravia (now the Czech Republic) and spent his childhood travelling throughout Yugoslavia and Austria.

At various times his father worked as an architectural engineer, businessman and resort hotel manager on the Adriatic island of Krk. Here, young Alfred f