Great performers: Alfred Brendel

2023年05月13日

ベートーヴェンソナタを学ぶ者にとってAlfred Brendelは素晴らしい表現者として存在しています。数々の功績とは対照的に彼は早くから華々しい社交場から離れ、記念碑的なレコーディングを行っていました。彼の人生において異なる時期に、彼は3回ものベートーヴェンソナタ全曲録音を行いました。また私たちがシューベルトを理解し愛することができるようになったのは彼のおかげと言って間違いありません。今日は改めて彼の音楽への情熱を感じていきましょう。(English) Alfred Brendel exists as an extraordinary interpreter for students of Beethoven's sonatas. In contrast to his many achievements, he left the glamorous social scene early on and made monumental recordings. He recorded the complete Beethoven sonatas at different times, no less than three times. Thanks to him, we have come to understand and love Schubert. So let's feel his passion for music again today.

Great performers: Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel is one of the reasons I started playing the piano. My mother was a great fan of Brendel, and my love of Schubert's piano music, especially the Impromptus and Moments Musicaux, directly resulted from my mother hearing Brendel play this repertoire in concert.

A few days after the show, she presented me with an Edition Peters score of the music and urged me to learn it. I was only 11 or 12 at the time.

Brendel has been a highly respected figure on the world piano scene for as long as I can remember. His retirement from performing in 2008 (appropriately for an artist who has focused on the composers of this city, in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna) was greeted with many generous tributes tinged with sadness at the end of a tremendous musical career; he had been performing for some 60 years.

But, unfortunately, he preferred not to continue serving until his faculties or physical health deteriorated. So there was no farewell tour, just a single concert, and the manner of Brendel's retirement is perhaps typical of an intensely private artist.

It takes a lot of imagination to bring a work to life, but it is on the terms of the composition and not on the terms of showing off. Of course, it is impossible without you, but I am responsible to the composer, especially for Alfred Brendel's piece.

He is a musician whose intellectual curiosity and rigour have continually fuelled his understanding and appreciation of the music he plays. He is a great researcher and autodidact, an eloquent writer who pursues similar interests in art, literature, poetry and philosophy, which undoubtedly feed his musical landscape.

He was one of the first pianists of the modern era to perfect 'intellectual' music-making, embracing the model of the thinking musician rather than one driven by emotion. As a result, Brendel may not be a risk-taker in performance.

Still, perhaps his greatness lies in his impeccable taste and musical integrity, based on a profound understanding of music's structure, nuance and variation and the expressive effect of these formal qualities.

If I belong to any tradition, it is the tradition that allows the masterpiece to tell the performer what to do rather than the performer telling the masterpiece what to do.

10)

In addition, his obvious affection for the music he plays enhances our experience and appreciation of it. A communicator in his craft, he always manages to convey the mood, be it the wit and humour of Haydn, the rhetoric and despair of Beethoven, or the bittersweet nostalgia of the late Schubert.

11)

(Perhaps one of Brendel's most significant achievements has been raising the profile of Franz Schubert, a composer who, without Brendel's advocacy, would probably still be regarded as a poor relation to Beethoven).

12)

He has eschewed the usual routes to success, stubbornly determined to follow his career path, eschewing the aura of celebrity that surrounds other artists and allowing his musical development to mature at his own pace and on his terms. As a result, his reputation is built almost entirely on his impeccable playing rather than the influence of marketing or powerful record companies.

13)

At 20, I had no passionate drive to be great. I knew I had potential and wondered how far I could go by age 50. (Interview with the New York Times, 1981)

14)

It is the Viennese masters - Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert - to whom Brendel feels the most extraordinary kinship and to whom he has paid the most scrupulous attention.

15)

Still, it is worth noting that he began his career in the 1950s with remarkable performances of Prokofiev (Piano Concerto No. 5), Stravinsky (Petrushka), Mussorgsky (Pictures of an Exhibition) and, in the 1960s, Chopin.

16)

As for the composers with whom he is most closely associated today, his repertoire seems very broad indeed, given the great variety and complexity of their works: Haydn's piano sonatas, the complete piano sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven, not to mention his piano variations, concertos and cello sonatas; Schubert's piano sonatas; Schumann's piano concerto, Kreisleriana, the Fantaisie op. 17, Fantasiestücke, Kinderszenen.

17)

Then there are his acclaimed recordings of Liszt - the Concertos, Totentanz, Malediction, Années de pèlerinage, Harmonies poétiques et religieuses; plus works by Brahms, Busoni, Berg, Schoenberg..... In addition, between 1958 and 1964, Brendel was the first pianist to record the complete piano works of Beethoven.

18)

Fortunately, Alfred Brendel has not disappeared from the music scene. A regular in the audience at London's Wigmore Hall, where he listens to and supports other musicians, he now has more time to mentor younger pianists such as Kit Armstrong (Imogen Cooper and Paul Lewis are among his older pupils).

19)

He also gives readings of his poetry and stimulating lectures on subjects such as Schubert's last sonatas, 'Light and Shade in Interpretation', 'Does classical music have to be all serious?' and debunking the image of Franz Liszt as a showman and charlatan, his thoughtful erudition tempered with wit and good humour. And for those who miss his presence on the concert stage, his delicate and extensive catalogue of recordings remains.

"Does Classical Music Have to be Entirely Serious?" by Alfred Brendel, 2011 Beatty Memorial Lecturer. Established in 1952, the Beatty Memorial Lecture Series aims to foster the exchange of ideas by bringing the world's leading thinkers to McGill.

Alfred Brendel on Music

https://www.classical-music.com/reviews/dvd-blu-ray/alfred-brendel-music/

Few are more qualified to discuss musical interpretation, articulation and rhetoric than the veteran pianist and octogenarian pedagogue Alfred Brendel. Though retired from the concert platform, Brendel has kept up a busy schedule of public appearances with lectures across Europe. The three courses on this two-disc set were filmed at the 2010 Salzburg festival and will be familiar to anyone who has read his essays or caught his recent tour.

Those who haven't, however, are in for a substantial musicological treat, particularly with the first lecture, 'Does classical music have to be entirely serious?'. Reading at the piano, Brendel takes a serious look at humour, touching on Dvorˇák's unfunny Humoresques and Ligeti's funny ha-ha/funny weird Aventures nouvelles before focusing on the comic in the works of the Viennese Classical composers. There are inevitable touches of comedy within his delivery, too: 'The pianist who has not succeeded in making someone laugh at the end of Beethoven's [Op. 31] Sonata should become an organist,' he says drily.

Thoughts range from the philosophical to the finer points of interpretative detail that make essential viewing for pianists in the following lectures: 'Musical Character as exemplified in Beethoven's Piano Sonatas' and 'Light and Shade of Interpretation'. But the only reason these essays deserve – and only just, in my view – to be watched in director Mark Kidel's no-frills DVD format rather than read is to hear Brendel illuminate his thoughts on the piano. His playing inevitably left me wanting more, albeit more of the score. Nick Shave

Alfred Brendel - Schubert - Four Impromptus, D 899

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24DugWBRkYg&t=20s

BRENDEL, Beethoven Piano Sonata No.14 in C sharp minor, Op.27 No.2 "Moonlight"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqaHP0FcJsU

Ludwig van Beethoven : Klaviersonate Nr.32 c-moll, Op.111 - Alfred Brendel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za61AlvqJnc

Alfred Brendel & Kit Armstrong | Set the Piano Stool on Fire (film, 2011)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcDDymfZyAo

"An intimate account of the relationship between the young composer and pianist Kit Armstrong and the world-renowned Alfred Brendel. Set the Piano Stool on Fire captures both the creative process and champions the value of teaching and collaboration. Featuring the only filmed footage of Brendel during his farewell tour, this is highly revealing and essential viewing for anyone interested in classical music."

Great performers: Alfred Brendel