Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel (Vízmberk, 5 January 1931 – London, 17 June 2025) was an Austrian pianist, born in what was then Czechoslovakia and later resident in the United Kingdom. Brendel is one of the most renowned pianists of the second half of the twentieth century. He gained great fame with his interpretations of works by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Liszt.

A few years after his birth, the Brendel family moved from Vízmberk to Zagreb. Here he received his first piano lessons. During the Second World War, he stayed with his family in Graz, where he took lessons in harmony. In the final year of the war, the 14-year-old Alfred was sent to Yugoslavia to dig trenches. The result was that he was admitted to hospital with symptoms of hypothermia.

In 1948 he gave his first recital in Graz. He gave it the name A Fuga in piano literature. Alongside works by Bach, Brahms and Liszt, he played his own compositions. Yet Brendel decided to concentrate more on piano playing, which caused composing to fade into the background. His first recording appeared when he was 21 years old. This performance of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 5 was the first of an extensive series of recordings. Over more than half a century, Brendel built an international career with many performances and recordings throughout the world.