Final chord: On the death of pianist Alfred Brendel

The Austrian-born composer died "peacefully" and "surrounded by his family" on Tuesday in London . He was famous for his interpretations of the works of Haydn , Mozart , Beethoven , Schubert, Brahms, and Liszt, among others. Already a legend during his lifetime, he was considered extremely modest, reserved, and self-critical. With his passing, a truly great musician—critics call him a "genius on the keyboard"—leaves the concert stage.

Brendel had already bid farewell to his audience in December 2008. "Sixty years of playing in public is enough," he explained succinctly at the time, adding modestly: "It would be nice if one or two of my recordings could continue to find listeners in the future."

Shortly thereafter, he suffered a sudden hearing loss, and his perception of sounds was distorted. He stopped practicing and hardly gave any interviews. But Brendel didn't let it show on his face. He appeared fit and younger than his years. In 2016, he happily accepted the Echo Klassik award. With this prestigious music award, the German Phono Academy honored the exceptional musician's life's work.

Brendel: "Philosopher at the Piano"

Brendel particularly impressed audiences with his unique playing style. Critics praised the lightness and poise of his touch. At the same time, Brendel always played with precision and seriousness.

He already looked like the "philosopher at the piano": gaunt, tall, and with thick horn-rimmed glasses – Brendel presented himself, with sparing body language and striking modesty, as a servant of composers . Yet, as the London newspaper "The Guardian" once praised, he was never a "passive follower of orders" or, as the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" wrote, by no means a "Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal of Classical Music."

A very unique artistic signature

Quite the opposite: "I often feel like a character actor," Alfred Brendel said in a 2002 interview with Deutsche Welle. "I want to transform myself—as much as possible." He didn't blindly trust the musical text. Rather, he delivered his own, unmistakable artistic signature. The musician gave a surprising answer to why this was so: "The years I spent under Nazi rule made me immune to blind trust."

Thus, the sounds he captured on records and more than 100 CDs have become a defining feature for generations of musicians and music lovers. Brendel intoned "music that is not played, but simply happens on its own," thus harking back to the musical style of his teacher Edwin Fischer and the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, whom he admired. Yet he also claimed this for himself and his own life's work.

Cosmopolitan on the concert stage

Alfred Brendel was born on January 5, 1931, in Northern Moravia, then still Austria, now the Czech Republic. The boy with German, Austrian, Italian, and Slavic roots grew up on the Adriatic coast in present-day Croatia. He attended school in Zagreb, studied at the conservatory in Graz, moved to Vienna in 1950, and then moved to London in 1970. "I'm not someone who seeks or needs roots," Brendel once said. "I want to be as cosmopolitan as possible. I prefer to remain a paying guest. That's a lesson I learned during the war."

His first concert at the age of 17, shortly thereafter winning the Busoni Competition in Bolzano, and later decades of concert activity worldwide. The rewards: three honorary doctorates from London, Oxford, and Yale, countless prizes, including the Ernst von Siemens and Herbert von Karajan Awards, lifetime achievement awards at the MIDEM Classical Awards in Cannes, the Edison Awards in the Netherlands, and finally, in 2016, the ECHO Klassik: Perhaps no other pianist has been honored with prizes and awards as much as Alfred Brendel.

Brendel was at home on concert stages all over the world. Yet, as few people know, he also wrote numerous poems and essays and published books. His most important work, "Music, Sense and Nonsense," was published in 2015, in which he took eloquent stock of his musical life.

A few composers

Alfred Brendel , that much is certain, was an artist with a broad horizon. Yet he knew exactly what music interested him. He was the first pianist to record the complete piano works of Ludwig van Beethoven. He distinguished himself as "the" Schubert interpreter. Haydn , Mozart, Liszt, Busoni, and Brahms were also among his favorite composers. In later years, however, Brendel limited himself to a few—for good reason, as he explained in a 2002 DW interview: "If you play the right pieces, pieces that are worth spending a lifetime with, then these are sources of strength that constantly emit new energy and regenerate the player's strength."

Shortly before Alfred Brendel gave his last public concert on December 18, 2008, together with his son, cellist Adrian Brendel, the pianist had recorded Beethoven's cello sonatas. What will he miss most after his concert career? "The adrenaline," he replied, adding: "Despite the constant "disgusting" coughing and ringing cell phones, he also missed the audience."

Until the end, Brendel traveled the world, giving lectures on music history and philosophical topics, reading from his now eleven books, and reciting his own poems. Since the 1970s, the family man, now married for the second time, had lived in London, where he had set up a small house for himself and his family in the Hampstead district, filled with musical memorabilia, countless pictures, books, and records. Here, at the age of 94, Alfred Brendel drew the final chord to his extraordinary musical life.