Nelson Freire

Nelson José Pinto Freire (; 18 October 1944 - 1 November 2021) was a Brazilian classical pianist.

A child prodigy from Minas Gerais, Freire studied in Rio de Janeiro and Vienna before winning the Vianna da Motta International Music Competition in 1964. He played music from Bach and Beethoven to Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Debussy, Liszt and Brazilian composers. Romantic music formed much of his concert and recorded repertory.

He performed with orchestras in Europe, the Americas and Asia, working with conductors including Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Chailly, Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev, Eugen Jochum, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Seiji Ozawa and André Previn.

Freire recorded for CBS/Columbia, Sony, Teldec, Philips, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and Berlin Classics. His recordings received the Edison Award, the Gramophone Award, the Diapason d'Or, the ECHO Klassik and a Latin Grammy Award. He was nominated three times for a Grammy Award.

Early life and education

Freire was born in Boa Esperança, Minas Gerais, on 18 October 1944. His family had a piano at home, and as a small child he began playing by ear, imitating music played by his older sister Nelma. Concert biographies usually date the beginning of his piano studies to the age of three, although Freire later remembered beginning to play at four. The family moved there when he was about six. His father left his pharmacy in Boa Esperança and took a bank job so that Freire could continue studying in the city. In 1964 he shared first prize with Vladimir Krainev at the Vianna da Motta International Music Competition in Lisbon. He also received the Dinu Lipatti and Harriet Cohen medals in London.

The Lisbon prize opened a steady run of engagements abroad. Freire replaced Alexander Brailowsky in Mexico and gave his first concerts in Spain in 1965, playing in Valencia, Elche, Madrid and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Orchestras, conductors and recital work

Freire spent the next decades moving between solo recitals, concertos and chamber music. In Europe he played with the Berlin Philharmonic, Gewandhaus Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Vienna Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. The following year, Freire joined the orchestra on a European tour through 13 cities in six countries, with concerts at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Berliner Philharmonie.

In Brazil, Freire took part in events for the bicentenary of Chopin's birth. On 13 March 2010 he played at Sala São Paulo with the Filarmônica Brasileira under Cláudio Cruz in the opening concert of the Ano Chopin no Brasil. He also sat on the jury of the XVI International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw that year, when Yulianna Avdeeva won first prize.

Freire had already worked as a competition juror elsewhere. In 2001 he presided over the jury of the Concours international Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud in Paris. He was due to serve on the jury of the XVIII International Chopin Piano Competition in 2021, but illness forced him to withdraw. Arthur Moreira Lima replaced him.

In 2011 Freire cancelled a planned appearance with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra and Roberto Minczuk in support of musicians who had been dismissed from the orchestra.

Collaboration with Martha Argerich

Freire met Martha Argerich in Vienna when they were young pianists. Their friendship lasted for the rest of his life and developed into his longest piano-duo partnership. In 2000 Freire joined Argerich at Carnegie Hall, playing Ravel with her in a programme that also paired Argerich with the Juilliard String Quartet.

They toured Japan in 2003, Brazil and Argentina in 2004, and North America in 2005. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Classical Music Awards and the Konex Mercosur Prize in 2019.

At Carnegie Hall in 2018, Freire appeared with the Grand Rapids Symphony under Marcelo Lehninger, playing Villa-Lobos's Momoprécoce and de Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain. A fall in Rio de Janeiro in 2019 fractured his right humerus and forced him to cancel performances. He planned to return to the stage in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed those plans. Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Beethoven, Debussy and Liszt make up much of the recorded repertory, alongside Brazilian music, Bach and collections of shorter pieces. His CBS recording of Chopin's 24 Préludes received the Prix Edison. The Teldec album Chopin: Nocturnes & Fantasie paired ten nocturnes with the Fantaisie in F minor, Op. 49. Other Warner and Apex reissues included the four scherzos, the Heroic Polonaise, the Third Ballade and the Berceuse. It received the Diapason d'Or, the Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles Cros and a Choc from Le Monde de la musique. It received a Grammy nomination. Later Decca releases included Beethoven sonatas such as the "Moonlight", "Waldstein", "Les Adieux" and Op. 110, followed by a Debussy album with the first book of preludes, Children's Corner, Clair de lune and La plus que lente.

Freire recorded the two Brahms piano concertos with the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly in an album released by Decca in 2006. The recording won the 2007 Classic FM Gramophone Record of the Year award and the concerto category, and received a Grammy nomination.

For Chopin's bicentenary in 2010, Decca released Freire's recording of the complete nocturnes. Chopin: The Nocturnes received the Diapason d'Or and another Grammy nomination.

In 2011, the bicentenary of Liszt's birth, Freire released Harmonies du soir. The album contains the second and eighth Hungarian Rhapsodies, the title étude from the Transcendental Études, Waldesrauschen and the six Consolations. He had also recorded Liszt's piano concertos and Totentanz with the Dresden Philharmonic and Michel Plasson for Berlin Classics. Some of this material was later reissued alongside recordings by Artur Pizarro.

Freire's recordings with Martha Argerich appeared on more than one label. A Decca album paired them in Rachmaninoff's Suite No. 2, Ravel's La valse and Lutosławski's Variations on a Theme by Paganini. Deutsche Grammophon released their Salzburg Festival performance of music by Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Ravel and Schubert. Freire also joined Argerich, Peter Sadlo and Edgar Guggeis in a Deutsche Grammophon recording of Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion and arrangements of Ravel.

Brazilian music had its own place in Freire's discography. Brasileiro: Villa-Lobos and Friends, released by Decca in 2012, pairs piano works by Heitor Villa-Lobos with music by other Brazilian composers. The album won the 2013 Latin Grammy Award for Best Classical Album.

A 2014 Beethoven album paired the "Emperor" Concerto with the Piano Sonata No. 32, again with Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra. In 2016 Freire made his first Bach album, playing the Partita No. 4 in D major, BWV 828, the English Suite No. 3 in G minor, BWV 808, the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, and transcriptions by Busoni, Siloti and Myra Hess. Encores, released on his seventy-fifth birthday in 2019, gathered shorter pieces by Sgambati, Purcell, Scarlatti, Paderewski, Godowsky, Grieg, Rubinstein, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Shostakovich and Granados.

Broadcast recordings filled gaps left by the studio catalogue. Decca's 2014 set Radio Days: The Concerto Broadcasts, 1968-1979 collected performances of concertos by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Chopin, Liszt and Schumann.

Film, interviews and biographies

João Moreira Salles directed the documentary Nelson Freire, released in 2003. Filmed in concert halls, backstage, during travel and at home, it follows Freire from memories of his first encounters with the piano to scenes with admirers after performances. Performances and rehearsals carry much of the film, while Martha Argerich provides its principal personal testimony.

Salles and his crew filmed Freire in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, France, Belgium and Russia between May 2000 and August 2001.

Freire rarely gave long interviews, but a few contain detailed recollections of his childhood and career. In an interview with Stany Kol, first published in The UNESCO Courier in September 1995, he recalled Boa Esperança, the move to Rio de Janeiro, his studies with Nise Obino, the 1957 Rio competition, Vienna and his first years abroad. In 2019, shortly before receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Classical Music Awards, he spoke at length about his training, repertory, recordings, friendship with Argerich and his feelings about recognition late in his career. Julia da Rosa Simões translated the book into Portuguese, and DBA published it in Brazil as Nelson Freire: O segredo do piano in 2024, the year Freire would have turned eighty. Bellamy used interviews, personal archives and conversations with people who knew Freire to write about his career, friendships, repertory and private temperament. He was married to physician Miguel Rosário. He planned to return to the stage in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed his return.

Tributes and commemoration

After Freire's death, orchestras, concert halls, musicians and cultural institutions in Brazil and abroad paid tribute to him. In Brazil these included the Fundação Osesp, the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sala Cecília Meireles, the Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro, the Theatro Municipal de São Paulo and the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra. Obituaries often remarked on the contrast between the attention his playing received and his reserved manner away from the piano. The city also named the Deck Mirante Nelson Freire after him.

Decca released the posthumous album Memories in 2022, drawing on unreleased recordings and broadcasts. In 2024, when Freire would have turned eighty, Juliana Steinbach gave a tribute concert in Paris.

Bellamy's biography Nelson Freire: le secret du piano appeared in France in 2022.

Awards and honours

Competitions and institutional honours

1964: First prize at the Vianna da Motta International Music Competition in Lisbon, shared with Vladimir Krainev. 1964: Dinu Lipatti Medal in London. 2005: Special honorary award for his career, Victoires de la Musique Classique. 2019: Konex Mercosur Prize.

Recording awards and distinctions

Prix Edison for his CBS recording of Chopin's 24 Préludes. 2011: Quarterly Critics' Choice, Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, for Liszt: Harmonies du soir. 2013: Latin Grammy Award for Best Classical Album for Brasileiro: Villa-Lobos and Friends. 2016: ECHO Klassik award, Solo Recording, music up to and including the 17th/18th century, for Bach.

Grammy Award nominations

2006: Grammy Award nomination, Best Instrumental Soloist Performance without Orchestra, for Chopin's études, Barcarolle and Piano Sonata No. 2. 2007: Grammy Award nomination, Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra, for Brahms's piano concertos with the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Chailly. 2010: Grammy Award nomination, Best Instrumental Soloist Performance without Orchestra, for Chopin: The Nocturnes.