Alfred Brendel

From 1828 and the three posthumous sonatas Brendel has now gone back in Schubert's life to 1826 and 1825, i.e. to the G major and the unfinished C major sonatas. The G major work was not first published as a "Fantasy" for nothing: though not all that technically demanding, it is one of the most difficult to bring off in view of its leisurely, musing style and general air of benignity. Brendel never for a moment allows attention to wander. He plays it very simply and self-communingly, and somehow mesmerizes you with the raptness and radiance of it all. His lyrical tone is particularly beautiful (though just once or twice his delight in melody causes him to underplay the accompaniment).

A key release for the Liszt anniversary year: Alfred Brendel: Liszt - an addition to the series of Artist's Choice albums in which Alfred Brendel has selected his preferred recordings from his Liszt discography. Three generously-filled CDs include such masterpieces as the Sonata in B minor and a selection of late pieces as well as the complete "Italie" from the Années de pèlerinage.

Though some musicians rerecord the same repertoire, refining the same concept over time, Alfred Brendel's Beethoven concertos change significantly with every go-around. One of the defining influences in this latest go-around is conductor Simon Rattle. He's one of the stronger minded and truly collaborative conductors that Brendel has ever had, and his bent toward historically informed performance inspires the pianist to a radical reevaluation, resulting in interpretations that achieve a new level of cogency over his previous take.

Alfred Brendel KBE (born 5 January 1931) is an Austrian classical pianist, poet, author, composer, and lecturer who is noted for his performances of Mozart, Schubert, Schoenberg, and Beethoven.

A 10 CD Box set with 23 Beautiful Mozart Piano Concertos. Alfred Brendel playing piano. Imogen Cooper also on piano. Accompanied by Academy of St. Martin-In-The-Fields orchestra. Conducted by Neville Marriner. This set is wonderful: Brendel is at the peak of his art, the conductor and the Orchestra are perfect, the sound is clear and old fashionable, very recommended.

Brendel has now recorded the work three times for the gramophone. At first, on Vox/Turnabout in the early 1960s, he was the brilliant iconoclast before his deeper realization of the work's essentially comic energies. And here I use 'comic' both in the narrow sense of the term (the Diabe/li is, after all, full ofjokes, many of them with the staying-power of the finest Wildean epigrams) and in the broader sense: what Susanne Langer has called, comedy "as an image of human vitality holding its own in the world amid the surprises of unplanned coincidence".

It's hard to imagine better performances of these works, either technically or emotionally. Brendel takes a relatively straight line through the works that reveals their varied emotional glory. This is beauty through structure, realized though a heartfelt and thoroughly considered, yet spontaneous-sounding performance. This wonderous music is simple in form, but beautiful and emotional when played spectacularly well as here by Brendel.

…There can be little doubt that it is the orchestra as ever, peerless in Brahms that gives this recording its distinctive character. It provides exactly the right fully-fledged symphonic context for Brendel. It also inspires him to realize the solo part with a weightiness of tone and concentration of line that hasn't always been there to complement the natural clarity of his Brahms. Thus, though individual movement timings are virtually identical with those on Brendel's earlier 1973 Amsterdam version on Philips, the scale and musical reach of the performance is considerably extended, as, indeed, is the shrewdness of page after page of musical detailing.