We hope that some of you classical music fans heeded our advice in last Sunday's Classical Music Agenda and went to hear renowned pianist Alfred Brendel at the Kennedy Center last night. I was there, enjoying two hours of concentrated musical bliss, thanks to the Washington Performing Arts Society, which had brought him to Washington for twelve concerts before this one. Brendel is one of the most widely recorded pianists of all time, and he is still performing regularly and extraordinarily well at age 75. He grew up in Austria and the former Yugoslavia, and although he has played all kinds of music, he is particularly known for his interpretations -- intellectual, wry, technically flawless, sensitive -- of the music of classical Vienna, especially Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart. In other words, precisely the music on the program last night.

Acknowledging the warm applause at his entrance but not milking it as a flashier performer would do, Brendel launched right into the simple phrases of the first of two Haydn sonatas on the program, Hob. XVI:42. This little two-movement work whirled by gracefully in Brendel's hands, a perfect sonic canvas of delicate sworls, bright melodic tone, and whirring flourishes. Yes, there are minuscule chinks in Brendel's technical armor from time to time these days -- unlike Maurizio Pollini, who will be coming back to the Kennedy Center on May 17 -- but Brendel almost always gives a polished, well-conceived, and above all else musically sensitive reading, especially in works of this style.

The most substantial piece on the program, Schubert's Sonata No. 18 in G Major, D. 894, concluded the first half. Even played without repeats, as Brendel did, this sonata is an example of the "heavenly length" often attributed to this composer's works. Composed in 1826, it is in Schubert's mature style -- well, as much as we can say that about someone who died in his early 30s -- and Brendel handled its four rather different movements with consummate artistry. Schubert had such melodic facility, seemingly able to write nothing more easily than a beautiful tune. If a pianist doesn't have a beautiful touch on the keys, Schubert is not the right music to be playing, and this is one of Brendel's greatest strengths.

Intellectually, Brendel is one of the most perceptive interpreters, too, without bringing any of the aridity one fears from cerebral players. When the first theme of the first movement deceptively returned in the development, in a foreign key, it was so bittersweet, preparing for its triumphal return at the recapitulation. This is possible because Brendel understands form and can back up that understanding with such color and texture in his fingertips. His greatest strength is in soft, delicate, nuanced music, and the Schubert second movement had an astonishing sotto voce ending that was pure Brendel. The fourth movement, with its ricocheting repeated notes, was a marvel, as was the music-box tinkling of the third movement's trio.

It was Mozart that opened the second half, two rather small pieces presented as delightful miniatures. The solemn Fantasia in C Minor, K. 476, is the better-known of the two, played with finesse and intelligent handling of the motivic fragmentation that seems to be Mozart looking forward to Beethoven. However, it was the Rondo in A Minor, K. 511, that most impressed, a work heard much more rarely. It strikes me as a private piece, full of chromatic experimentation, a sort of harmonic notebook that records Mozart's fascination with the counterpoint and extended chromatic harmony found in the works of J. S. Bach.

We could not have asked for a better conclusion than one of Haydn's best comic piano pieces, the Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI:50, composed during Haydn's trip to London in 1794. Here Brendel showed off his ability to play runs in thirds in his right hand, done not only accurately but with flair. To compensate for the shorter length of the second half, he took all of the repeats, to our delight. By the time that Brendel got to the rondo, after an exquisite slow movement, we were really having fun. The third movement is a textbook example of Haydn's wit, with its chippy theme that sometimes takes one or two false harmonic shifts to get started or conclude. With a twinkle in his eye, Alfred Brendel gave the joke its due, with none of the vulgarity that could come from too heavy of a musical guffaw. Haydn requires only a devilishly raised eyebrow, not a jab of the elbow in our sides. An encore of a Mozart slow movement was the perfect postprandial bonbon to send us home through the cold.