Alfred Brendel, arguably Britain's greatest living pianist and adored by classical music lovers for his rigorous yet witty and emotionally complex playing, is to retire from performance.
He will give his final concert in Vienna on December 18 next year, when he will be 77 and will have enjoyed a career spanning 60 years. The city is an appropriate setting for a farewell by an artist who has the traditions of central European pianism running through his veins and who has zeroed in on the great Austro-German repertory, particularly Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert and Mozart. His final programme will be with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras at the Musikverein. He will perform Mozart's Piano Concerto No 9 in E flat K271, nicknamed the Jeunehomme.
The straightforward manner of his departure is typical of a musician who has never gone in for fireworks or histrionics. According to Thomas Hull, his spokesman: "It has always been Mr Brendel's intention to stop performing while still at the peak of his powers, and he makes this decision while continuing to attract capacity audiences throughout the world. He dislikes the idea of farewell tours and concerts and prefers to just stop." Brendel's recital programme next season will contain a simple nod towards his retirement: he will perform Schubert's last, great sonata, D960 in B flat.
Andrew Clements, the Guardian's music critic, described him as "the pre-eminent exponent of the central European tradition; the greatest pianist from that tradition of our time". Brendel, who has written collections of poems, as well as volumes of essays, will in future concentrate on his literary career. He may give selected masterclasses, and has been committed to coaching younger pianists such as Till Fellner, Paul Lewis, Imogen Cooper and, latterly, Kit Armstrong. Though he is regarded as British by his fans, and has lived in London since the 1970s, he is an Austrian citizen, born in Wiesenberg, northern Moravia, in 1931. He began the piano aged six in Zagreb, where his father ran a cinema. Between 1958 and 1964 Brendel became the first musician to record Beethoven's complete piano works.
He also performed the complete sonatas for the first time, a feat that he has repeated several times, most recently in the 1990s. Clements said Brendel's decision to cease performing was typical of a man who was "intensely self-critical".
· The following clarification was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Thursday November 22 2007. In the article above we were right to say that Alfred Brendel was the first pianist to record Beethoven's complete works for solo piano, but wrong to say that he was the first pianist to perform Beethoven's complete sonatas.
