Alfred Brendel: The Farewell Concerts | CD review

Alfred Brendel quit while he was, magisterially, ahead. These CDs from farewell concerts in Vienna and Hanover include one concerto and a complete solo recital and show Brendel as one of the supreme pianists of our time. The deliberately un-virtuosic repertory carries an almost unbearable inwardness of feeling: that quintessential Brendel mixture of intellect and emotion balances Haydn's double variations with ideal poise. Some of the faster movements may be a little brittle, but at the heart are the slow movements, particularly of the Mozart concerto (beautifully accompanied by Mackerras) and the last Schubert sonata: here, and in the final Bach encore, the superbly crafted and projected lines are stretched to infinity, glimpsing eternity.