Brendelfest Berlin
9 May 2017
I have been lucky enough to know Alfred Brendel for some 45 years, starting with an incredibly intense period of work with him in my twenties. I have recorded with him, and all along he has been a friend.
When asked to contribute to this Brendelfest, I decided to simply go back to the first recording of his that I heard, and see what had given me such a virulent case of the Brendel bug. This recording was of the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies for Vanguard Classics, made in the late 60s. I was as thrilled to hear it again as I had been all those years ago, and this because it had the hallmark firmly stamped on it of the great emerging Brendel - by which I mean, emerging to the general public; for those of us in the know, he was already the great Brendel.
What were these characteristics that I heard? A demonic energy, fabulous pianism, an ear and imagination for sound, coupled with a capacity to translate this onto the keyboard that was second to none, and turned the piano into a completely different instrument. There was great expressive intensity, wit, and an overview of a work that spanned from before the first bar until after the last, the latter being also a characteristic of Edwin Fischer, as Alfred often impressed upon me. These were some of the characteristics that propelled me onto to a train to Vienna as fast as I could go, to work with him. I found there a man of modesty and great musical integrity who was - and is - a formidable teacher. This too should be honored in Alfred's lifetime achievements, as many of us among the younger generations can testify. He had a clear vision of how the music sounded to him, and was articulate in conveying it. He was also fiendishly demanding and made little concession to youth, in pushing one to achieve ever more in the service of the music - I think we both tell the story of spending a good 20 minutes on one chord in a Schubert sonata, after which so help me God I had to play the next chord, and furthermore string them together; this was probably a further 20 minutes of pacing up and down for him and a learning curve of listening for me. I was always grateful for this, and it has stood me in good stead. in pushing one to achieve ever more in the service of the music.
This rigor, not least towards himself, has been a constant factor in Alfred's life, coupled with a thirst for knowledge and understanding - through music, through literature, the visual arts, and his own writing. All of these things should be recognized as important in contributing to make Alfred Brendel a giant among pianists - always his own man, always recognisable, and never easily classifiable.
We should consider ourselves lucky that we have lived in an age where the recording industry was at its most vigorous, in parallel with Alfred's playing years, and that we now have such a wonderful testimony to the great artist that he is.
Within these recordings, we should not overlook Alfred's love of lieder, and the rich partnership with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, which I witnessed at close quarters. In the 1980s, Brendel and Fischer-Dieskau toured together, performing Schubert's Winterreise, which I heard both at Covent Garden in London and at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. There was an intense, if I suspect not at all times smooth, connection between these two great Schubertians, whose common acquired knowledge of the composer permitted them to rehearse and perform at a level given to few.
I traveled to Berlin, where they were recording at the Siemens-Villa, and sat in on some four days of recording. Fischer-Dieskau was extremely precise as to how he wanted his voice recorded, initially a challenge for Philips producer Volker Straus, who had worked with Alfred a lot but not with Fischer-Dieskau. Once Fischer-Dieskau was happy with the sound, he would record six songs each day, twice, and then, apart from maybe a tiny re-take, he would leave. This, if memory serves me right, was not Alfred's usual pattern of recording; however despite being rather quiet, he produced some of his most beautiful playing, and again I was aware of the degree to which music, word and idiom inhabited these two men through and through, and produced interpretations of rare profundity.
May you be celebrated, Alfred, for the great sounds you have left in our hearts and souls!
Imogen Cooper