Alfred Brendel was born in 1931 in Wiesenburg (Moravia) and began taking piano lessons at an early age in Zagreb. He continued his musical education in Graz where his teachers included Edwin Fischer, Paul Baumgartner and Eduard Steuermann. His international career was launched upon winning the Busoni Competition held in Bolzano (1949) and he was already well-known at the time of his British debut in 1958, and his great recording career began in Vienna soon afterwards.
A major portion of Brendel’s success must be attributed to his many recordings; he was the first to record Beethoven’s complete works for piano and his repertoire is vast (Bach to Schoenberg) but he is surely best known for his recordings of the German Classic and Romantic periods. Brendel has always been a man of many parts: at the time of his debut recital in 1948 (Graz) a local gallery was exhibiting his paintings; his writings are erudite, witty and extremely thought-provoking. In addition to his many prize-winning recordings, Brendel has received honorary doctorates from Oxford and Yale Universities. He was awarded the KBE in 1989 having been a British resident since 1970, and retired from concerts in 2009.
