Piano
Rudolf Buchbinder
Debut: January 16th 2019
Experience meets sparkling spontaneity
Since decades on the biggest stages of the world,
Rudolf Buchbinder never stopped searching:
"My credo: 'Anyone who thinks they are something
has stopped becoming something.' (Socrates)".
One of today’s legendary performers, Rudolf Buchbinder has appeared in concerts with
renowned orchestras and conductors all over the world for more than 50 years. For his 70th
birthday in the 2016/17 season, he was celebrated in such venues as the Carnegie Hall in New
York, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Musikverein in Vienna and the Berlin Philharmonie. Other
highlights of this anniversary season were concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra led
by Christian Thielemann and tours with the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Vienna
Philharmonic Orchestra. At the invitation of Mariss Jansons, Rudolf Buchbinder served as
Artist in Residence with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra as well as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra named him an Honorary Member. The
2017/18 season sees his return to the Staatskapelle Dresden, City of Birmingham Symphony
Orchestra, Filarmónica della Scala, among others, and to the Boston Symphony Orchestra led
by Andris Nelsons.
Mr. Buchbinder’s repertoire ranges from Bach to contemporary music. He has documented
this broad artistic range with more than 100 recordings, many of which have won awards. His
readings of the works of Beethoven, in particular, have set new standards. With his cyclic
performances of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas, he has contributed significantly to the
development of the performance history of these works. To date, he has performed this cycle
more than 50 times in cities including Berlin, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Dresden, Istanbul, Milan,
Munich, Shanghai, St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Zurich. In 2014, he became the first pianist to
perform all Beethoven sonatas during one summer season at the Salzburg Festival. The
Salzburg cycle was recorded live and released on DVD. A live recording of Brahms’ two piano
concertos with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Zubin Mehta was released on DVD and
CD in 2016.
Mr. Buchbinder’s readings are based on meticulous study of source material. An avid collector
of historic scores, he owns 39 complete editions of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. Furthermore,
his library contains an extensive collection of first prints, original editions and copies of
Brahms’ two original piano concerto scores.
Rudolf Buchbinder has been the artistic director of the Grafenegg Festival since its founding
in 2007. Under his leadership, it has developed into one of Europe’s foremost festivals for
orchestral music. So far, Mr. Buchbinder has published two books so far: his autobiography
“Da Capo”, as well as “My Beethoven – Life With the Master”.
