Wolfson Honorary Fellow Alfred Brendel dies

Wolfson College is saddened to hear of the death of eminent musician, poet and Wolfson Honorary Fellow Alfred Brendel, on 17 June 2025 in Hampstead, London. Mr. Brendel will be missed around the world. He was a close friend of Isaiah Berlin’s from 1975, was chosen among Berlin’s Desert Island Discs selection on Radio 4 in 1992 and played at Berlin’s own memorial events in 1988. He was elected Honorary Fellow of Wolfson College in 2016 as part of our Fiftieth Anniversary Celebrations.

Alfred Brendel was awarded the Herbert von Karajan music prize for lifetime achievement in December 2008 in Baden-Baden, southern Germany. Later that month he made his final appearance on the concert platform in Vienna, where he was the soloist for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 9., voted one of the 100 greatest cultural moments of the decade by The Daily Telegraph.

A small collection of books by – and about – Alfred Brendel have been placed in the Library display cabinets on the ground floor.