In 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 increasingly the focus of Brendel’s recital repertory, but a glance at a chronology of his recordings reveals how wide his musical interests really were. If it is Brendel’s discs of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert that will be treasured above all, there is much else to be discovered among the myriad recordings he left us. The recordings that follow, therefore, are very much a personal choice; another day, it might be entirely different.
