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Alfred Brendel remains perhaps the preeminent thinking pianist, a loner to whom fame came through the power of imaginative integrity, an artist who has achieved -- at his best -- a profound rapport with and a unique understanding of piano literature from Bach to Schoenberg. Yet by his own account, "I did not come from a musical or intellectual family. ... I have not been a child prodigy. I do not have a photographic memory; neither do I play faster than other people. I am not a good sight-reader." Brendel's recording catalog is vast, stretching back to the dawn of the LP era. He is also a compelling writer and remained active in that capacity after retirement and into the mid-2020s.

Brendel was born to a family of Austrian background in Wiesenberg, Moravia, Czechoslovakia (in Czech, Wizemberg, and now Loučná nad Desnou in the Czech Republic) on January 5, 1931. He received piano lessons from ages six to 16 as the family moved from Zagreb to Graz, and studied composition privately while supporting himself in a variety of odd jobs. Brendel was among the first generation to learn from recordings of pianists like Alfred Cortot, Wilhelm Kempff, and Artur Schnabel, with conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler and Arturo Toscanini proving especially valuable. Master classes with Eduard Steuermann -- a pupil of Busoni and Schoenberg -- and Edwin Fischer completed his sparse musical education. A 1948 debut recital in Graz marked the beginning of his career, which was propelled by a prize at the Busoni Competition in Bolzano in 1949. His first recording, with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, appeared in 1950 or 1951 but wasn't the music for which he became better known; rather, it was Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 5 in G major, Op. 55.

Busoni's example, his mysticism and Faustian striving, fascinated the young Brendel; the latter recorded Busoni's Fantasia Contrappuntistica in the early '50s. The ensnaring and gradual liberation from Busoni's influence may be traced in the several essays Brendel wrote about him in the collection Musical Thoughts & After-Thoughts. Armed with high musical ideals, Brendel embarked upon an international recital and recording career which, in the '60s, saw his reputation grow throughout Europe and North America. He performed the entire cycle of Beethoven sonatas in London's Wigmore Hall in 1962, and recorded them for the budget Vox label, with the result that many classical listeners with more taste than money had their conceptions of repertory works deeply shaped by the pianist. In the '70s, he became an exclusive Philips artist, touring and recording a wide variety of composers including Liszt, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Bartók, and Schoenberg, and garnering numerous awards. He remains perhaps best known, however, for his readings of the Viennese Classicists and early Romantics, from Haydn and Mozart to Schumann.

He has published books of musical criticism -- and comic poetry. In 2004, he appeared in concert with his son, cellist Adrian Brendel. Brendel announced his retirement in 2007 and undertook one last worldwide concert and recital tour, ending in Vienna in December 2008, performing, appropriately enough, Mozart's Jeunehomme Piano Concerto. Brendel remained active as a writer, and, at age 94, he contributed an essay about Busoni to a reissue of his early-'50s recordings of the Fantasia Contrappuntistica and of Liszt's Weihnachtsbaum (the latter was the world-recorded premiere of that work). No reliable count of Brendel's hundreds of recordings exists; the "complete discography" on his website is a sparse accounting of his digital releases. His recordings, even the earliest ones, remain avidly listened to, however, and his influence among thoughtful classical music listeners is perhaps unmatched. ~ Adrian Corleonis & James Manheim

Walter Klien was an Austrian pianist who was known for his interpretations of the piano music of Schubert. His association with the VOX record label led to a massive recorded legacy, but also contributed to his obscurity. He was born in 1928, in Graz, Austria, to the artist Erika Giovanna Klien. She initially hid her son's birth from her family, and in 1929 she emigrated to the U.S. to pursue her career as an artist and educator. Klien began playing the piano when he was five years old. He received his first piano instruction in Frankfurt, and then studied piano, composition, and conducting in Graz. In 1953 he graduated from the Vienna Music Academy, where he studied piano with Josef Dichler and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. It was also around this time when he competed and won prizes at the Bolzano Busoni Competition in 1951 and 1952, the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris in 1954, and the Bosendorfer Prize in 1953. Following these successes, Klien began recording with the VOX record label. On his earliest recordings he was an accompanist to vocalists Julius Patzak, and Norman Foster, followed by collaborations with pianist Alfred Brendel on albums of four-hand piano music by Brahms, Mozart, and Dvorak. Throughout the 1960s he toured the world, with successful debut performances in London in 1968, and in the United States in 1969. That same year, he also won the Wiener Flötenuhr Prize for his recording of Mozart's complete Piano Sonatas. He continued touring and recording through the '70s, and became known as an interpreter of classical Austrian and German composers. Collaborations in the early '80s with Arthur Grumiaux and Wolfgang Schneiderhan led to many chamber music recordings. He recorded extensively with VOX, leaving a sizeable legacy of masterful interpretations, but this also led to his relative obscurity due to the label's "low-budget" reputation. However, he became the first pianist to record the complete solo piano music of Brahms, and his complete recording of Schubert's Piano Sonatas is especially revered. He also recorded piano concertos by more modern composers such as Stravinsky, Janáček, and Honegger. ~ RJ Lambert

Paul Angerer is an Austrian composer and conductor who is better known in the latter endeavor, especially for his numerous recordings. He has held positions with mostly second-tier orchestras and opera companies, though has managed to gain the respect of critics and public alike. He has also appeared in concerts as both a violist and violinist, acquitting himself well in both instrumental genres. His compositional style is conservative and divulges the influence of Hindemith. His catalog includes operatic and orchestral works, incidental music for the theater, oratorios, masses, and chamber music.

Angerer demonstrated unusual musical skills as a child and at age 14, enrolled at the Vienna Music Academy, where his instrumental studies included piano, organ, and violin. Like many violinists, he eventually extended his string-playing skills to include the viola. He also studied theory and composition at the academy and shortly after his 1946 graduation, he took a position in the Vienna Symphony Orchestra as a violist. At the 1948 Geneva Music Competition, he won a medal, which boosted his reputation and allowed him to take a more favorable post with Orchester de la Suisse Romande, from 1948 to 1953. Angerer also remained active as a pianist, organist, and composer during the early years of his career, though it was his orchestral work that provided him his means of support. He returned to the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in 1953 as the first-chair violist. A year later, he entered one of his organ compositions in the international music competition in Haarlem, Holland, and captured first prize. In 1956, Angerer resigned from his duties as violist with the VSO and accepted the appointment as conductor of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. He secured a second post in 1960 as conductor of the Vienna Burgtheater, for which he composed music for live dramas. He left the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and the Burgtheater positions in 1963 and 1964, respectively, and accepted an appointment as principal conductor of the Bonn opera house in the latter year. By now, Angerer was regularly making recordings. Among his more memorable efforts from this period were his collaborations with pianist Alfred Brendel on the Mozart piano concertos No. 17, No. 22, No. 25, and No. 27 and with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Angerer also recorded the Haydn Concerto in D major No. 11 (H. 18) with Brendel and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Angerer departed his Bonn post to accept the directorship of the Ulm Theater (opera house) in 1966, where he would serve two years. In the period 1968 - 1972, he served as music director at the Salzburg opera house (Landestheater). He then accepted the directorship of the Pforzheim-based Southwest German Chamber Orchestra in 1972. He made several memorable recordings with this ensemble, most notably the Concerti Grossi (12) of Corelli and oboe concertos by Telemann, with Lajos Lencses as soloist. Angerer and this ensemble also appeared in three of the seven volumes of the Vox label's Romantic Piano Concerto series. After departing the Pforzheim post in 1982, Angerer limited his conducting activity to guest-conducting engagements and joined the faculty of the Vienna Hochschule für Musik for a decade, retiring in 1992.