Pierre-Laurent Aimard honours the late Alfred Brendel, his regular musical partner, with a characteristically imaginative programme.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard - ‘one of the most essential keyboard advocates of our era’ (The Guardian) - enjoyed a close professional partnership and friendship with pianist and composer Alfred Brendel. In the third of our Brendel tribute recitals, he offers a characteristically imaginative programme of works close to both their hearts.

Brendel had a particular fondness for Franz Schubert. Aimard performs some of Schubert’s shorter lyrical works alongside finely crafted miniatures by his own long-term collaborator György Kurtág - himself a Schubert devotee.

Aimard has also chosen a selection of Ludwig van Beethoven’s alternately witty and tender Bagatelles - another Brendel favourite. He juxtaposes them with a work by the composer who dubbed Aimard ‘the best pianist for me’ (The New York Times): György Ligeti’s inventive and virtuosic Musica ricercata. In Aimard's recent performance of works by Kurtág and Ligeti, The Telegraph described Brendel’s spirit as ‘smiling down on us’.