Alfred Brendel (piano)
Decca · 4781369 · 3 hours 20 minutes
Haydn’s piano sonatas occupy a strange and wonderful corner of the repertoire — endlessly inventive, full of comic feints and harmonic surprises, yet somehow still underplayed compared to the symphonies. Brendel understands that Haydn’s wit isn’t decoration but the actual architecture of the music, and he plays these pieces with a dry, precise intelligence that never tips into coldness. Three hours and twenty minutes of this feels less like a marathon than a long, genuinely fun conversation with one of music’s great mischief-makers.
Awards:
- Gramophone Awards — 1987 — Winner – Instrumental
“These sonatas are magnificent creations, wonderfully well played by Alfred Brendel. Within the order and scale of these works Haydn explores a rich diversity of musical languages, a wit and…”
— Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010
Alfred Brendel (piano)
Philips · 4761715 · 54 minutes
Haydn’s piano sonatas occupy this wonderfully weird middle ground — they’re full of wit and surprise, but they demand a performer who can deliver a punchline without telegraphing it. Brendel gets that instinctively, bringing a dry, precise intelligence to these pieces that lets Haydn’s harmonic jokes and sudden dynamic lurches land exactly as intended. There’s a conversational quality to his playing here that makes 54 minutes feel like a lively evening spent in very good company.
Awards:
- Penguin Guide — Rosette
Alfred Brendel (piano)
Philips · 4166432 · 3 hours 20 minutes
Haydn’s piano sonatas have this delightful habit of sounding simple right up until they aren’t — a phrase will suddenly dart sideways into some unexpected harmonic corner, and you realize the old master was quietly laughing at you the whole time. Brendel gets this completely, bringing a wit and intellectual precision to these eleven sonatas that never tips into dryness, keeping the music feeling alive and a little mischievous. The 1987 Gramophone Award was well earned, and three hours and twenty minutes with Brendel and Haydn turns out to be genuinely joyful company.
Awards:
- Gramophone Awards — 1987 — Winner – Instrumental
Alfred Brendel (piano)Academy of St Martin in the Fields & Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sir Neville Marriner & Sir Charles Mackerras
Philips · 4757185 · 2 hours 15 minutes
Haydn’s piano concertos have a way of sounding either too serious or too playful in the wrong hands, but Brendel finds exactly the right conversational tone — witty without winking, substantial without stiffening. Paired with Mozart and conducted by two legends in period-informed playing, this is the kind of disc where every movement feels like it’s been genuinely thought through rather than just executed. At over two hours of music, you get the sense of spending an afternoon with someone who has very strong, very persuasive opinions about these composers.
“Haydn is given his own voice. You cannot expect anything less from Alfred Brendel who rarely fails to make you listen, think and feel – as indeed he does. An elite musician.”
— Gramophone Magazine, March 2006
Alfred Brendel (piano)Vienna Volksoper Orchestra, Paul Angerer
Vox · CDX5180 · 2 hours 35 minutes
Mozart and Haydn were practically neighbors in musical spirit — both obsessed with wit, surprise, and the kind of phrase that seems to end before you expect it to — and Brendel understands that completely here. His touch in the Mozart concertos has this wonderful clarity that never tips into coldness, finding the humor in a melodic detour or a harmonic sidestep with total naturalness. The Vienna Volksoper Orchestra under Paul Angerer keeps things light and responsive, giving Brendel room to breathe and occasionally mischieve.
Alfred Brendel (piano)Wiener Philharmoniker, Sir Charles Mackerras
Decca · 4782116 · 2 hours 20 minutes
Schubert’s final piano sonata has a way of feeling like it already knows something you don’t — and Brendel, in what turned out to be his last public performances, brings every last gram of that premonition to the surface. The slow movement here is genuinely devastating, unhurried in a way that only comes from decades of living inside this music. Paired with Mackerras and the Vienna Philharmonic, the whole program carries the weight of a long goodbye without ever becoming sentimental about it.
“A Brendel speciality, Schubert’s mammoth final Sonata is the most substantial work here, with a heart-wrenching slow movement at its core. Propelled with graceful momentum, this valedictory…”
— Graham Rogers, bbc.co.uk, 17th November 2009
Alfred Brendel (piano)
Philips · 4567272 · 2 hours 30 minutes
Brendel has always been the thinking person’s pianist — someone who sounds like he’s working out the philosophy of a piece in real time, even when he’s played it a hundred times before. This collection pulls together some of his finest work, and what strikes you is how he makes even familiar Beethoven or Schubert feel like a first encounter, full of little hesitations and revelations that feel genuinely discovered rather than rehearsed. Two and a half hours with him at the keyboard is basically a masterclass in how intellectual rigor and emotional warmth don’t have to be opposites.
