Listen "Alfred Brendel"
Episode Synopsis
Another chance to hear pianist Alfred Brendel in conversation with Michael Berkeley in 2017. Alfred Brendel, one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, died in June aged 94. He was renowned for his masterly interpretations of the works of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Brahms, Liszt and Beethoven. He talks to Michael Berkeley about the composers and musicians he admires, and looks back at his early life. It wasn't a musical childhood; the family had no record player, but his mother used to sing cabaret songs. The Second World War made an unforgettable impression. Brendel reveals too what drew him to live in Britain: the musical culture here, the Third Programme, the Proms, and the flourishing choral tradition. He also talks honestly about how the deafness of his later life affected his love of music, and how he dreamed of music all the time and played it continually in his head.Brendel was too modest to pick any of his own recordings for his Private Passions music selection, so following the 2017 programme Michael Berkeley presents some of his personal favourite Brendel recordings of works by Bach, Mozart and Schubert.Original producer: Elizabeth Burke, a Loftus production for BBC Radio 3
Repeat producer: Graham Rogers
Repeat producer: Graham Rogers
More episodes of the podcast Private Passions
Peter Purves
18/01/2026
Vanessa Williams
11/01/2026
Alison Weir
04/01/2026
Pam Ayres
21/12/2025
Louise Penny
23/11/2025
Lea Ypi
16/11/2025
Hugh Bonneville
09/11/2025
Annabel Croft
02/11/2025
The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer
26/10/2025
Hollie McNish
19/10/2025
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.