Alfred Brendel has died at the age of 94. Born in 1931, Brendel was not only a great pianist with an extraordinary legacy of recordings, but he was also an influential writer and thinker. When Brendel turned 90, Editor-in-Chief James Jolly spoke to him for the Gramophone Classical Music Podcast, which you can listen to below. 

Alfred Brendel had a long performing career – he gave his first recital in Graz, Austria, when he was 17, in 1948, and his last concert 60 years later, in Vienna in December 2008. Early in his career he recorded for Vox, for whom he made many records of Beethoven’s music including the sonatas and concertos, as well as much other solo piano music. Since 1970 he recorded for Philips with whom he remained until the label was merged with Decca. His repertoire for Philips focused on the Austro-German repertoire and his recordings embraced the complete Mozart piano concertos and many of the sonatas, the Beethoven piano sonatas and piano concertos (twice), as well as concertos and solos works by Schumann, Brahms and Liszt, and many of Schubert’s piano sonatas.

A full obituary will appear on this website soon, but in the meantime do explore Stephen Plaistow's interview with Alfred Brendel, which marked his retirement from live concert performance, plus our Top 10 Brendel Recordings list, a useful guide to further listening.