Alfred Brendel was taller and had a better sense of humor than one would ever anticipate from the somber expression he wore on so many of his album covers. He was often described as “cerebral,” but what he really liked was to laugh. I guess that image would have jarred with the marketing strategy of Philips Records. They always had him looking way too serious as he recorded way too much Beethoven. Back in the day, Brendel was the first to record Beethoven’s complete piano music. Then he recorded the sonatas again. And then again.
His fame paralleled the rise of the LP. It’s interesting that many of his earlier recordings were in muddy sound for the Vox label. That said, the repertoire was often much more stimulating than that on the digital recordings he made later in his career. (For Vox, he set down first recordings of Franz Liszt’s “Christmas Tree Suite” and Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 5.) Also, the performances seemed more spontaneous, or perhaps simply more vibrant. Later, he was always reliable, if not always the most thrilling interpreter. Cerebral became a handy euphemism.
Handily, the compact disc arrived for Brendel at mid-life, just as he had reached maturity. The improved technology allowed him to go back and document much of his core repertoire in clean, modern sound. By extension, he was a regular presence on classical radio, and millions became familiar with him through his interpretations of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, and perhaps most interestingly, Schoenberg.
When he retired in 2008, at the age of 78, he had been struggling with arthritis and back pain, but he was still at the top of his game, one of the few classical artists still guaranteed to pack an auditorium. He appeared at Carnegie Hall no less than 81 times. Twice, he performed the complete Beethoven sonatas there.
I don’t think it’s possible to love classical music and not respect Alfred Brendel. The man was an interpretive artist of the highest caliber. He also sold lots of records during an era when his very existence helped contribute to the viability of keeping a classical music section in most record stores.
He looked pretty much like what anyone imagined a pianist to be: bespectacled, crowned with a disheveled widow’s peak, and improbably tall and lank. He was the living embodiment of an absent-minded professor. But the man, better-read than most, also possessed a keen sense of humor. He was a fan of Edward Gorey and Charles Addams and Gary Larson. He collected kitsch and newspaper bloopers. He went on record as stating that his favorite occupation was laughing.
Alongside his many thoughtful essays on musical subjects (including at least one on humor in music), he published two volumes of epigrammatic poetry, “One Finger Too Many” and “Cursing Bagels.”
One of the most celebrated pianists of his day (and that’s saying something), Alfred Brendel died this morning, peacefully at his home in London, at the age of 94.
R.I.P.
PHOTO: Brendel, flanked by Liszt (left) and Eugene Jardin’s whimsical “Gipsbrendel”
