It is with great regret that we receive the news of the passing of the great Alfred Brendel.
Peter Paul Kainrath, artistic director, speaks for everyone at the Busoni-Mahler Foundation when he observes, that Alfred Brendel was an absolutely exceptional figure: as an artist, as a pianist, as a listener, as an essayist, as a keen and humorous observer of the times. “His pianistic work first gained visibility with a fourth prize at the very first Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition, and he remained closely connected to Busoni throughout his life. The Busoni Competition owes him much. His knowledge of Busoni and his embodiment of the comprehensively knowledgeable and interested artist, will serve as a model for us for a long time to come. I recall how Brendel once said that he hoped that every performer, especially when at the height of his or her success, always questions what they are doing and constantly re-examines it from a certain distance, is never satisfied and strives for improvement.
He will be greatly missed!
The late King Alfred would have applauded the irony bypass.
The National Youth Brass Band of Great Britain has cancelled Andrew Batterham’s Trumpet Concerto from its Summer Course concert in Blackburn next Saturday. Batterham, 56, has been charged with alleged child sex offences in Melbourne, […]
The violist Clifton Harrison has let it be known he is leaving the Kreutzer Quartet in a couple of weeks. He has been with the much-recorded group for just under ten years. The post UK […]
We’re hearing breath-stopping accounts of the Rosenkavalier revival at La Scala, conducted by Kirill Petrenko of the Berlin Philharmonic in his first appearance at the matrix of Italian opera. Giornale della Musica reports ‘endless applause’ […]