My Top 10 Recordings - no. 9: Brendel/Schubert

Alfred Brendel would have to be very high on the list of pianists who had a big influence on me.

I love Brendel's probing mind, his embrace of Dadaism as an art form, his Georg Kreisler attitude, his thoughts and after-thoughts about music and the music industry, and his Viennese way of thinking and being.

One can hear these influences in his recordings be it in one of his multiple recording sets of the 32 Beethoven Sonatas or be it in this recording of two of Schubert’s greatest creations.

A late starter, Brendel’s courage to live and accept his self-perceived imperfections, and to pursue his ever probing and self-examining thoughts about music is something I truly miss in our current performance world, where the pursuit of perfection and the drive for a ‘final product’ is just all too present.

Often critiqued as too magisterial, I cherish the conviction of Brendel’s interpretations and his clarity of structure and line.

I keep forgetting: Brendel and Schnabel are the only two pianists to have performed the complete cycle of Beethoven Sonatas in Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall. What a legacy!