Schubert on the Bowery

Or in memory of a beloved friend who lit my world

It was drizzling rain on the Bowery, everything was grey and blurry, and I was staring at the words on my phone ‘Alfred died this morning’ against the awful green background of the messaging app. I tried to call my husband but I couldn’t say the words. Instead I cried silently, he knew already.

Alfred Brendel was my friend. What an unusual, beautiful friendship. I am so grateful for the loving camaraderie we shared. I met him when I was a child, apparently I would play the piano for him when he came to our home - ah to be a little child and be so unselfconscious! He dedicated his farewell concert in Paris to the memory of my father, who had been his publisher and his friend. I used to love going to his concerts with my father. We listened to his recordings at home all the time. I remember once meeting my father at the concert hall, I was wearing a pair of black high heels that used to be my mother’s and which were my most prized possession in high school, and a blue embroidered silk Iranian coat, also a gift form my mother. It was a treat to be my father’s date for a concert, it was a treat to share Alfred Brendel’s exquisite music together. It was the last concert we would attend together before my father’s cancer took him away.

A year after my father died I moved to London as a young student. I was alone. Alfred took me under his wing. He would invite me over to his house in Hampstead for dinner. We’d sit and talk about the books we both read. At the end of dinner, he would share with me some Armagnac. He was (and remained) the only person I would drink Armagnac with! The warmth and serenity of that house in Hampstead, the warmth and wit and humor of my friend would soothe me and helped me a lot at that time of deep loss.

I kept a note on my phone for the past ten years or more titled ‘things Alfred recommends’ - books, films, tv shows, music to listen to. The conversation that began with Alfred when I was twenty went on for years to come, shared with his wonderful partner Maria, with my mother, with my boyfriend and then husband, Lucas. We talked and shared meals, we talked and shared museums shows, we talked on Zoom when the pandemic hit. It was a joy to see Alfred and Maria’s smiling faces pop up on the screen. We Zoomed to say I was pregnant, we zoomed to show them the baby, we zoomed to share images of a show I was having and was desperate to share with them despite the distance.

Alfred taught me so many things. He invited me in his beautiful world, he shared with me his love for music, books, but mainly paintings. The last time I saw him we went to look at Surrealist paintings together. Then shared a nice meal and what was to be our last Armagnac together. I was going to visit him next week in London.

My daughter asks lots of why questions? ‘Why does it rain?’ Like her I want to ask and scream ‘Why do people go?’

I hope Alfred and my father Christian are sharing a glass of Armagnac in heaven right now. I will forever be grateful for the kindness Alfred showed me, for the lesson in living one’s life with passion and elegance, knowing what really matters: art, music, friendship.

There are many videos of him performing, there are many recordings, I can’t listen to them right now, or look at them, I am too sad. But soon I will, and how lucky we are that his music as a gift to us endures.

I usually end this newsletter with some book or exhibition recommendations. This week, let me share with you some items from the list I kept on my phone ‘Alfred recommendations:’

Wilhelm Kempff playing Mozart and Beethoven

Listen to the Hermes quartet, the Artemis quartet

Edward Gorey on ballet

Musil, The Man without Qualities

Harold Bloom on Dante

Samantha Harvey, Orbital