Alfred Brendel

There is this issue of control, but I suppose I should say that I tend to work with the canvas horizontal rather than vertical, and I use paint at quite a sort of liquid level.

so inherent is that is that it does things that you don't necessarily intend and it's it's a matter of what was it but used to say i think was alfred brendel said it's it's a it's a mixture of strategy and ecstasy and and i think though those sort of reconciliation of all sorts of opposites in a painting and control and chaos being one of them And then, you know, I'd be the first to admit sometimes I'm the last person that can see the work clearly.

And probably the best way of dealing with that is sometimes setting a painting to one side, turning it to face the wall so I can't see it.

And then one day you turn it back round and you know whether it's actually become complete in that time or actually you know exactly what needs to happen to it to advance it.

Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 from 1786 completed two months before the premiere of his opera The Marriage of Figaro.

This is the pianist Alfred Brendel and Neville Mariner conducts the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

It's about seven minutes long.

Thank you. . . . you you ¦ so so . . . . .

Thank you.

That was the slow section of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23.

The pianist was Alfred Brendel, and Neville Mariner conducted the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

My name is Peter Cudlip, and you have been listening to the Classical for Everyone podcast.

This is his Piano Sonata No. 6, in which he acknowledges the influence of two great masters of the classical era, Haydn and Mozart.

Here is pianist Alfred Brendel.

Thank you.

so so Thank you.

Thank you.

Piano Sonata No. 6 in F Major by Ludwig van Beethoven.

Alfred Brendel was at the piano.

It's all about phantoms and chasms, mortuary chapels and a haunted divertimento as we celebrate the Halloween season with a frighteningly fun-filled array of works conjuring up ghosts and goblins.

Well, thank you for that beautiful introduction to the music.

I grew up loving Liszt's music, partly through the recordings of Alfred Brendel.

He did so much, I think, more than almost any pianist to help the public take his music seriously.

I think there was a very strong dismissive attitude towards Franz Liszt's music.

And I sometimes wonder if...

Some of the qualities of your playing arise from taking seriously the religious sentiments, the religious and philosophical sentiments contained in those scores.

I mean, you mentioned Alfred Brendel.

Brendel was not particularly religious, but he was an intensely intellectual pianist.

And I find myself... wishing to speak much less and play people music.

And in fact, in a recent lecture in the Sheldonian in May, I began by playing Bach's Choral Prelude which I think is one of the most profound pieces of music ever written in the Bach-Bussoni transcription played by Alfred Brendel.

It's shatteringly beautiful and moving.

And there's something about great music.

Every part of it is speaking to every other part of it.

And the thing as a whole has to be understood.

Now, I know that when you are learning music, and even if you're learning, you're not Alfred Brendel, but you want to play the piece, you will have to take it apart and think about it from a theoretical point of view and practice the tricky passage in bar 52 or whatever.

Look, all of that is true, but in the end, that has to recede completely.

Well, thank you for that beautiful introduction to the music.

I grew up loving Liszt's music, partly through the recordings of Alfred Brendel.

He did so much, I think, more than almost any pianist to... help the public take his music seriously.

I think there was a very strong dismissive attitude towards Franz Liszt's music.

And I sometimes wonder if...

Some of the qualities of your playing arise from taking seriously the religious sentiments, the religious and philosophical sentiments contained in those scores.

I mean, you mentioned Alfred Brendel.

Brendel was not particularly religious, but he was an intensely intellectual pianist.