{"id":3602,"date":"2025-07-20T23:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T03:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=3602"},"modified":"2025-07-20T23:20:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T03:20:11","slug":"alfred-brendel-1931-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2025\/07\/alfred-brendel-1931-2025.html","title":{"rendered":"Alfred Brendel (1931-2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the wake of the death of the pianist Alfred Brendel on June 16, I notice a sharp uptick in viewers of my 2016 “Wall Street Journal” review of Brendel’s collected writings, my main interest being Brendel and Franz Schubert. I reproduce an excerpt from my review below. You can read the whole thing <\/em>here:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Schubert essays here collected, Mr. Brendel hones a metaphor that ceaselessly illuminates this protean composer: the \u201csleepwalker.\u201d Using Beethoven\u2019s decisiveness of form and sentiment as a foil, he showcases Schubert\u2019s waywardness\u2014a defining feature long misread as weakness. As opposed to Beethoven\u2019s \u201cinexorable forward drive,\u201d Schubert can convey \u201ca passive state, a series of episodes communicating mysteriously with one another.\u201d As opposed to Beethoven the \u201carchitect,\u201d Schubert \u201cstrides across harmonic abysses as though by compulsion, and we cannot help remembering that sleepwalkers never lose their step.\u201d Next to Beethoven\u2019s \u201cconcentration,\u201d Schubert \u201dlets himself be transported, just a hair\u2019s breadth from the abyss, not so much mastering life as being at its mercy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These observations will strike home to anyone who has listened closely to the Schubert sonatas or whose fingers have grappled with them and experienced at close quarters their chronic resistance to definitive formulation. Their ambiguities of sentiment and interpretation excite feelings of vulnerability. The A major Sonata, D. 959\u2014for some, Schubert\u2019s supreme achievement for the keyboard\u2014begins at least three times. Only with the dreamy second subject, a Lied, does the first movement attain a recognizable expressive state. The second movement shatters into atonal chaos. An endless finale gradually establishes the first movement\u2019s song mode as an anchoring poetic ingredient. Translating this music into words, Mr. Brendel finds \u201cdesolate grace behind which madness hides.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One corollary, as with Mahler, is a musical state of existential duress unknown to Beethoven, a condition of unease or terror prescient of world horrors to come. Mr. Brendel: \u201cIn such moments the music exposes neither passions nor thunderstorms, neither the heat of combat nor the vehemence of heroic exertion, but assaults of fever and delusion.\u201d Schubert presents \u201can energy that is nervous and unsettled . . . ; his pathos is steeped in fear.\u201d An \u201cimpression of manic energy\u201d points to \u201cthe depressive core of [Schubert\u2019s] personality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahler himself wrote of Schubert\u2019s \u201cfreedom below the surface of convention.\u201d Mr. Brendel: \u201cThe music of these two composers does not set self-sufficient order against chaos. Events do not unfold with graceful or grim logic; they could have taken another turn at many points. We feel not masters but victims of the situation. . . .\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a related blog on “Schubert and the Music of Exhaustion,” click <\/em>here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the wake of the death of the pianist Alfred Brendel on June 16, I notice a sharp uptick in viewers of my 2016 “Wall Street Journal” review of Brendel’s collected writings, my main interest being Brendel and Franz Schubert. I reproduce an excerpt from my review below. You can read the whole thing here: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3602","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-W6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3602"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3617,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3602\/revisions\/3617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}