Brendel is considered a master of German classical works. He may be the top interpreter of Beethoven’s piano works; he was the first to record Beethoven’s complete piano works in the 1960s. But his playing of Shubert and Mozart have earned him as much acclaim, as well as his Bach, Schoenberg, and just about every classical piano work.
Unlike most musicians today, Brendel does not try to create a new interpretation of the classics. Nor does he try to show off his own playing. In a Guardian interview last year, he said, “I am responsible to the composer, and particularly to the piece.”
Unlike other top musicians, he had little formal musical training. Born in Wiesenberg, Czech Republic (formerly Moravia), on Jan. 5, 1931, he started learning piano at the age of 6 and took piano lessons on and off for the next 10 years. However, he never really received any intense conservatory training (although he did study occasionally with master musicians like Paul Baumgartner, Eduard Steuermann, and Edwin Fischerand) but supplemented his lessons with a private study of classical recordings.
At 16, in 1948, Brendel began his career as a pianist. In 1949, he won the Busoni Competition in Bolzano. Soon after, he began touring internationally and won so many awards that they seem countless—awards ranging from the Grand Prix of the Liszt Foundation to the Japanese Record Academy Award.
Brendel’s other interests include painting, poetry, literature, composing, and Romanesque and Baroque architecture. Not surprisingly, he has written extensively on music.
Of his career he has said: “I did not come from a musical or intellectual family. ... I have not been a child prodigy. I do not have a photographic memory; neither do I play faster than other people. I am not a good sight reader. I need eight hours’ sleep. I do not cancel concerts on principle, only when I am really sick. My career was so slow and gradual that I feel something is either wrong with me or with almost anybody else in the profession. Literature—reading and writing—as well as looking at art have taken up quite a bit of my time. When and how I should have learned all those pieces that I have played, besides being a less than perfect husband and father, I am at a loss to explain,” according to geocity compilation of this program notes.
On Dec. 6, Brendel received the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize for his life-long achievements. He will be performing a series of concerts in Germany and throughout Europe in December. His final concert, including Mozart’s Piano Concerto 9 in E-Flat, will be at the Musikverein Music Hall in Vienna on Dec. 18.
