Eighth Notes

When, some four decades ago, soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf told us how she was pleased to have completed a second disc with conductor George Szell, she was equally delighted to share that she and her husband, EMI producer Walter Legge, had been successful in persuading the brilliant young pianist Alfred Brendel to participate. The Strauss/Mozart disc contained Mozart’s concert aria “Ch’io mi scordi di te” and Brendel had contributed the keyboard “obbligato” to marvelous effect. Even at that stage of his still-young career, the pianist had the ability to excite the great and powerful among musical colleagues.

Now in the midst of his farewell concert tour, Brendel is implementing his plan to exit the stage while still in premium form and audiences are filling American halls to overflowing to pay homage to his inimitable art. Brendel has had a long, fruitful relationship with Chicago; since his 1970 Orchestra Hall debut, he has been present nearly every year. None of these many salutary occasions, however, had carried quite the emotional loading of this fond goodbye – and our first balcony press tickets afforded us the perfect vantage point.

Brendel’s repertoire has never been exceedingly broad, although it has been more extensive than many realize. Known as an unsurpassed interpreter of the Classical and early Romantic Age composers, he has also espoused Schoenberg and, in his later years, Bach.

On Sunday, March 9, he offered works by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, composers residing at the very core of his interests. Haydn’s Variations in F minor bore an introspective mien amidst outbursts of chromaticism and bold and imaginative figurations, all of its beauties revealed in a reading as inevitable as it was rare. For Mozart’s Sonata in F major, K. 533/K. 494, Brendel summoned a staggering range of dynamics and colorings, deftly explicating the multiple curiosities in the piece, expanded from the composer’s fairly simple Rondo of two years earlier. Beethoven’s Opus 27 Sonata in E-flat major (Quasi una fantasia) offered intense variations between, for example, the ruminative opening phrases and the thundering passages that follow. Additional revelations were all accomplished with firm decisiveness utterly sans distortions. The conclusion prompted the first of several standing ovations.

The second half brought Schubert’s final keyboard work, his Sonata in B-flat major, unfolded here with utmost breadth, focus and affection. Brendel infused its inwardness with sovereign dignity while attending equally to the playful moments in the Scherzo. We’ve never heard this work better performed.

Responding to resounding cheers, Brendel offered two encores: a softly glowing slow movement from Bach’s Italian Concerto and a fragrant visitation of Liszt’s Au Lac de Wallenstadt from Annees de Pelerinage.

Sublime. Brendel can entertain no doubt about how much his public has valued his art; many grateful hearts are overflowing.