Table Of ContentMe
of People
Ail
Alfred Brendel in Conversation
with Martin Mever
Translated bv
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ME OF ALL PEOPLE
ALFRED BRENDEL
in conversation with
MARTIN MEYER
translated byRichard Stokes
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
ITHACA, NEW YORK
FirstpublishedinGermaninzooi byCarlHanserVerlag
©CarlHanserVerlagMunichWien,2001
FirstpublishedinloozbyCornellUniversityPress
Translationcopyright©RichardStokes,2002
Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsinareview,thisbook,orparts,thereof,
mustnotbereproducedinanyformwithoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublisher.
ForinformationaddressCornellUniversityPress,SageHouse,512EastStateStreet,
Ithaca,NewYork14850
ISBN0-8014-4099-8
Librarians:LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-
PublicationDataareavailable
Contents
I Life
page I
II AboutMusic
page 77
III On Performance
page 175
IV OnWriting
page 223
V Epilogue
page 247
Afterword
page 261
Index
page 265
I
Life
Intellectually, butalsogeographically, youarea CentralEuropean. To
whatextentcan thesame besaidofyourancestorsf
I'mnotfondofbeingcategorized. Ihave Germanaswell asAustrian
forebears, and a grandmother called Aloisia Guerra who came from
NorthernItaly; butthere's also Slavonic blood ifyougo bythename
ofmy maternal grandfather, Wieltschnig, although the spelling was
thoroughly Germanized. You could say that I'm an Austrian mix
after all.
Isn'tBrendela CentralEuropean namef
It'sprobablymostwidespreadinNorthGermany. Hereisa storythat
proves it. I was getting dressed in my hotel room before a concert in
Hamburg when the telephone rang. 'Uncle Alfred, it's Egon.' 'I was-
n't aware I had a nephew called Egon.' 'You've got a concert this
evening, haven't you?' 'Yes, I'm just putting on my tails.' 'Is Aunt
Jennythere?' 'Thereisn'tanAuntJenny.Whodoyoumean?' 'I'vegot
anuncle in BadKissingenwho'scalledAlfred Brendel, a pianoplayer
likeyou.'Then, when Iwentdownstairs into the hotel lobby, I found
myconcertagentwaitingformewith his mother-in-law, nee Brendel.
We droveto theconcert hall where Iwas addressed on the steps out-
sidetheartists'roombyamiddle-agedmanwhoinformedmethathis
name was Alfred Brendel. 'Aha,' I said, 'the gentleman from Bad
Kissingen.' 'Not atall,' he replied, 'I live in Hamburg.' All thatwith-
inhalfan hour.
Doesitoften happen thatyouareapproachedbyotherBrendelsf
LIFE
In my dining room in London hang two family portraits. One depicts
six brotliersandsisters from Leipzigwho are notrelated tome. Itwas
painted during the Schumann era, around 1840. On the left sits the
youngestoftheseBrendels, playingthepiano. Hisnameseems to have
been Albert Brendel, like my father's, and he apparently loved playing
Beethoven. The picture was bequeathed to me by an elderly Brendel
lady who was aware that there was no proofwe were related. I have
adopted this family. In my own there are neither musicians nor artists
norintellectuals, so this AlbertBrendel is my honorary musical ances-
tor.TheothergroupportraitshowsaWheelofHell-amanneristpic-
ture with traces ofHieronymus Bosch - on which humans are being
tortured by devils. I bought it at auction in Vienna, where it scared
everyone. It was only several years later that a historian explained to
me thatthe name Brendel derived from Brandli or Brendly, depending
whether it was written in the Swiss or English way. It was one ofthe
names forthe devil inthe MiddleAgesand inthewitchcraft literature
ofthe sixteenth century. Suddenly my family was becoming interest-
ing. I am, nevertheless, no devil-worshipper. And I do not, like
Stravinsky, believe 'in the person ofGod and the person ofthe devil',
as I once heard him declare on the radio! But there are in my studio,
quite bychance, an alpine maskwithgenuine horns, and a hugemen-
acingancestral figure from New Guinea. Theyhelp me to stayincon-
tact with reality while I practise. As it happens, a volume of my
German poems iscalled Little Devils.
I'm interested in how your childhooddeveloped in such a multiracial
state. Whatwereyourfirstmemories?
One ofmyveryfirstwas aural; indeed, quite a fewofmyearly recol-
lectionsareconnectedwiththeear. Irememberawalk inWiesenberg,
mybirthplace,andadogbyafenceterrifyingmewithitsbarking. My
first trauma. Then there was an elderly nanny, called 'Milli-Tant',
whousedtosingme folksongs, all ofwhichIcouldsoonsingmyself.
From Wiesenberg we moved to Yugoslavia, to the Dalmatian island
of Krk, where my parents spent two years trying to run a hotel in
Omisalj.
When was thatf
LIFE
Age three and four. I remember a record player which I sometimes
operated for the hotel guests. I was allowed to wind it up and place
recordsonit.Thatwasmyfirstacquaintancewithelevatedmusic.Jan
Kiepura andJosef Schmidt sang things like 'Ob blond ob braun, ich
HebealleFraun' and 'Wenn du untreu bisf. I stood nextto the record
player, sangalongandthought: Ican dothattoo.
Then I remember going for a walk on the beach with my young
nannyBertawhentwohotelguestsapproachedus. Oneofthempoint-
edatmeandsaidtohiscompanion: 'Isthata boyoragirl?'Theother
man said: 'A boy of course, you can tell by his energetic features!'
When bothofthemhadpassed by, Isaid: 'Berta,thatmansaidyou're
a silly cow!' [An untranslatable pun: 'Energische Ziige' - 'ndrrische
Ziege\] It was Berta herself who reminded me of the story twenty
years later.
You wereaprotectedonly child. Wereyou inany wayawareofthisf
My parents certainly protected me, perhaps too much. What I owe
them istheir reliability, punctuality, love oforderand, definitely, their
parental love. Theygave me warmth and security. Yet I became what
myparentswerenot. EverythingthatIfoundespeciallyinterestinghad
to beexploredandevaluatedonmyown. Andthishabithasremained
with me. There was also hardly any musical stimulation, although I
remember my mother, when I was very young, singing ''Ich reiss mir
eine Wimper aus und stech Dich damit tof ['I'll pull out an eyelash
and stab you to death with it'] - a wonderful Berlin cabaret hit a la
Dada. 'Silly, isn'tit?' she invariably said afterwards. When we moved
to Zagreb and I reached school age, I owned my own record player, a
small, yellow machine with a horn. I remember the song: 'Was macht
der Mayeram Himalaya? Rauf, ja das kunnf er, aber wie kommt er
wiederrunterfDermachtein'Rutsch undistfutsch." ['WhatisMyers
doing in the Himalayas? He got up all right, but howwill he everget
down? He slips and snuffs it.'] These were early contributions to a
world view, fragments of an absurd world that stayed in the back of
myhead.
AttheageofsixIwasgivenpianolessonswhichformyparentswas
the height ofgood form. I remember my teacher, Sofie Dezelic, who
during my first lesson explained note values to me in the most poetic
LIFE
way by plucking a sprig ofblossom. When I was seven I composed a
waltzthatwentsomethingliketheRadetzkyMarch,exceptthatitwas
in three-four time. We were living in a Zagreb house which looked
onto the market place, and through a window I would sometimes see
on the opposite side the heads of little girls bobbing up and down. It
was a ballet school; and a girl called Daria Gasteiger visited us once
with her mother, put on her ballet shoes and improvised a dance on
points to my Radetzky waltz. A big moment.
Didyoufeelasense ofachievement?
It was an experience that I would not put into the absurd category.
Thisgirl belonged to a children's ballet school, a group thattook part
in the performances of the 'Djecje Carstvo', a fairly prestigious chil-
dren'sorganizationthatonceayearputonshowsintheZagrebopera
house. In one ofthese I hadthe honourofplayinga leadingpart, that
ofa general with a fez and sabre. It was my first time on stage, and I
had to sing two old Austrian couplets. I remember that one ofthem
was called 'Das WassergigerP, and that 'Am Wasser, am Wasser bin i
z'Haus' rhymed with 'Jedes Dampfschiffweichtmiraus\ Butthe text
Ihadtosingwas inCroatianwhichIdidnotyetunderstand. Another
time I had to sing on the radio - a most embarrassing experience: I
began the songfartoo high and fluffedthetop note.
Was musicalreadyan essentialpartofyourlife?
Not really, since there was no awareness at home that music was
something important. Both my parents had in a modest way enjoyed
piano lessons as children, and played four hands perhaps once a
month-pieces like the overture to Louis Herold's Zampa. I still have
avividmemory-visualratherthanaural-oftheseperformances.My
father tried to play in a carefree, bravura way, raising his hands in
jerky movements, and twitching with the corner ofhis mouth almost
up to his eye. My mother was quite the opposite. She would sit very
tensely at the piano with an anxious expression and stab at the notes
likea woodpecker. Anyway,thiswaswhen Istarted mypianolessons.
Whenwe moved to Grazand I had to leavemyfirstteacherIwastold
thatI was too tense and should tryto loosen up.
