2 h. ago ‘It is impossible to recall him without smiling’: Simon Rattle on Alfred Brendel

The conductor first heard Brendel as a schoolboy. He was to become his cherished friend, inspirational collaborator and valued mentor for many decades. Simon Rattle remembers the great pianist’s wit, wisdom – and a particular pair of scissorsIt’s hard even to know where to start with Alfred: for any musician of my generation he was simply always there, the very definition of integrity and a kind of unique probing humour.I heard him first in Liverpool, playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 22, K482, an unforgettable concert for an impressionable 14-year-old. I could never have imagined then that my first collaboration with him would be in the same city when I was 20. That Beethoven – his first piano concerto – began a long journey of learning and friendship over the subsequent decades. I cannot stress how much I learned from him, or how painfully obvious it was to me just how steep the climb was to be able to come anywhere near to being an adequate partner for him. I remember clearly th...

Politics

4 h. ago A man of sense and wide sensibilities, Alfred Brendel was simply the pianist of pianists

His technique was of the highest order, his performances unmatched – but it was always at the service of the music, not of his own reputationAlfred Brendel would have scorned the suggestion he was the world’s leading pianist. He would have dismissed such an accolade as banal, journalistic and ignorant. He would, of course, have been right. Piano playing, he once said, was never sufficient, even when it was faultless.Yet, for a generation of musicians, especially in Britain, where he lived the second half of his long life, this dismissal of his own greatness could itself be dismissed as false modesty. When London’s Royal Festival Hall, still at that time the capital’s most cherished classical music large venue, reopened after a long renovation in 2007, the choice of its first recitalist was a no-brainer. For his legions of admirers, Brendel was always the one. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago Majestic, rigorous and sheer fun: the best of Alfred Brendel’s recordings

As the musical world mourns the celebrated pianist, we assess his wide recording legacy and pick the 12 best, from Russian rarities to quickfire BeethovenIn the two decades before he retired from concert-performances in 2008 at the age of 77, Alfred Brendel was arguably the best known classical pianist in the world. Yet regard for his playing was never by any means universal; what his many admirers found as searching, considered and profound in his interpretations, others heard as colourless and lacking in spontaneity. But Brendel’s lasting popularity is evidenced by his recorded legacy, which is certainly extensive enough for generations to come to make their own assessment of his stature. In a recording career that stretched well over half a century, he made more than 100 albums, which included three complete cycles of the Beethoven sonatas.As his career burgeoned, Beethoven, and the other great composers of the Austro-German tradition - Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms - were incr...

Politics

3 d. ago ‘We are so in love’: Singer Joss Stone announces birth of fourth child

She was congratulated by singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor, TV presenter and pianist Jools Holland and Supernanny star Jo Frost.

Politics

8 d. ago The Lost Tapes, Beethoven sonatas 18,27, 28 & 31 album review – Richter always found something fresh to say

Sviatoslav Richter(Deutsche Grammophon)Sviatoslav Richter’s already huge catalogue is enriched by these rediscovered recordings of recitals of Beethoven’s piano sonatas from 1965Though he claimed to dislike performing in a studio, Sviatoslav Richter became perhaps the most intensively recorded pianist of the 20th century. But while his studio work was extensive, it was the huge volume of recordings made officially and unofficially at his recitals across more than 40 years that really bulked out his discography, with multiple versions available of many of the core works in his repertory. For those reasons the rediscovery of “Lost Tapes” might not initially seem so remarkable. The performances, of four Beethoven piano sonatas, Opp 31 no 3, 90, 101 and 110, are taken from recitals that Richter gave in 1965. Op 110 comes from a performance at the piano festival he had founded the previous year at La Grange de Meslay near Tours, the others are taken from a concert in Lucerne three months...

Politics

3 w. ago Béla Bartók: Complete Piano Concertos album review – Tomáš Vrána rises to the challenge

Vrána/Janáček PO Ostrava/Káli(Supraphon)The young Czech pianist tackles Bartók’s formidable concertos with confidence and technical accomplishment, although tempi can feel a little sluggishEven though they are among the most challenging piano concertos in the repertory, there is no shortage of outstanding versions on disc of the three Bartók works, from Géza Anda in the 1950s to Pierre-Laurent Aimard two years ago. They are certainly ambitious works with which to launch a recording career on Supraphon, but Tomáš Vrána is undoubtedly dauntless; his performances are full of confidence, verve and faultless technical accomplishment. At times, though, they do seem rather sluggish; Vrána’s tempi are often on the slow side, but the textures from the Janáček Philharmonic tend to be rather muddy too, though there is plenty of neat, alert solo playing from its wind and brass. For all his keyboard agility, Vrána seems to be at most imaginative in the concertos’ slow movements, especially the c...

Culture

3 w. ago Brian Kellock: Legendary Scottish pianist who embodied the 'spirit of jazz' dies aged 63

Brian Kellock was one of the best-known pianists on the UK jazz scene.

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