Brendel bows out on a high

Alfred Brendel: Concert with the SCO and Piano Recital Usher Hall
*****

FROM the time of Artur Schnabel in 1947, the Edinburgh International Festival has featured pianists of the highest calibre. Alfred Brendel has been prominent among them.

These two concerts marked his last appearances in the Usher Hall as he is to retire from the concert platform in December. The topmost rating here reflects a long line of distinguished performances over decades.

As a minor niggle, it was regrettable for balance that the SCO did not field a larger string section in Mozart's C minor piano concerto (K.491]. Any shortcomings caused by that, however, were more than compensated for by the same composer's F major sonata (K.533] which, along with works by Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert, made up the solo recital.