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Artist: Rudolf Buchbinder
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Rudolf Buchbinder:

Brahms * Reger Song Transcriptions

Universally recognised as one of the world’s greatest pianists, Rudolf Buchbinder has spent many years exploring the masterworks of Austro-German Classical and Romantic music. For his latest Deutsche Grammophon album he brings his intellectual expertise and interpretative insight to a neglected corner of that repertoire – Max Reger’s lovingly crafted transcriptions for solo piano of 28 songs by Johannes Brahms. Recorded in 2023, the 150th anniversary of Reger’s birth, Brahms · Reger – Song Transcriptions will be released digitally and on CD on 22 March 2024, while Buchbinder’s performances of Wiegenlied and In Waldeseinsamkeit are already available to stream or download.

As well as being a prolific composer in his own right, producing works in a wide range of genres, Reger was also a skilled arranger and editor of the music of others. One of the composers he most admired was Brahms, and in the early years of the 20th century, not long after the latter’s death in 1897, he accepted an invitation from the publisher Simrock to transcribe 14 of Brahms’s songs for solo piano. 

Six years later, shortly before his own death in 1916, he added another 14 to a collection notable for its fidelity to the original music. “These will not be transcriptions embellished with ‘brilliant’ passagework,” said Reger at the time. “In the case of such masterpieces, any embellishment and any attempt to introduce a note of brilliance would be an unheard-of act of vandalism. I mean to adopt a different approach by bringing out the vocal line and, where possible, retaining the original accompaniment in the most faithful way that I can!”

Rudolf Buchbinder:

Soiree de Vienne

Rudolf Buchbinder – Soirée de Vienne sounds echoes of the celebrated Austrian pianist’s home city in the form of music closely associated with it. The recording, released by Deutsche Grammophon on 25 November, captures both the lost world of salon soirées and Vienna’s legendary attitude to life, with its heady blend of intensity and insouciance, earthiness and beauty.

“We all have impossible dreams,” says Buchbinder. “And one such dream gave rise to this album: I’d so much like to attend a Viennese soirée where all the composers on this recording are assembled: Strauss, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann and Beethoven.” His album brings them together in spirit, if not in person, and highlights 19th-century Vienna’s place as one of the world’s most important cultural crucibles. This is a matter of considerable pride for a performer and profound musical thinker who has lived in the city since early childhood, became the youngest ever student at its renowned Akademie für Musik at the age of five, and is an honorary member of the Wiener Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft.

His new album opens with Soirée de Vienne, a concert paraphrase of themes from Die Fledermaus and other Johann Strauss works created by Alfred Grünfeld, darling of imperial Vienna’s salon scene. It concludes with Soirées de Vienne: Valse-Caprice No. 6, Liszt’s reworking of melodies by Schubert. “These two pieces,” notes Buchbinder, “embody the spirit of a good evening get-together: inspiring, good-humoured, effervescent, but always probing the depths.”

Rudolf Buchbinder:

The Diabelli Project

Buchbinder, who recorded Beethoven's Diabelli Variations early in his career, has invited 12 contemporary composers to write their own variations on Diabelli's theme – which he will then record for DG and perform live on tour in 2020. His chosen contributors are: Krzysztof Penderecki, Rodion Shchedrin, Brett Dean, Max Richter, Jörg Widmann, Toshio Hosokawa, Lera Auerbach, Brad Lubman, Philippe Manoury, Johannes Maria Staud and Tan Dun.

Rudolf Buchbinder:

Mozart Piano Concertos

Pianist Rudolf Buchbinder, The "Viennese Oracle" (The Philadelphia Inquirer) releases his newest Sony Classical album, a recording of Mozart's Piano Concertos No. 23 in A Major, K. 488 and No. 25 in C Major, K. 503 with conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Concentus Musicus Vienna. The recording is a live account of Buchbinder's concerts with Concentus Musicus at the Vienna Musikverein in June 2012.

This marks the first time that Rudolf Buchbinder has performed in public on a period instrument; for these concerts he played a pianoforte that is a reproduction of a 1792 Anton Walter instrument created by fortepiano maker Paul McNulty. "I have always been fascinated by the variety, technique and sound of historical instruments, and even had a representative collection of them," Buchbinder says. "Recording Mozart's piano concertos?on a pianoforte was an exciting experience which I enjoyed very much. I was genuinely?obsessed with this sound."