Rudolf Buchbinder

At the age of only five he became the youngest student ever to be admitted to the Vienna Musik Hochschule. Today he is a renowned pianist. He began his comprehensive musical career as chamber musician. In the meantime, he performed as soloist with all great orchestras and conductors all over the world and is regular guest at the Salzburger Festspiele and all other major festivals.

Buchbinder´s repertoire is extensive and includes numerous 20th century compositions. He does not only devote himself to the classic-romantic music, he also recorded rarely performed pieces such as the collection of Diabelli-Variations composed by 50 Austrian musicians. Over hundred records provide proof of the extent and abundance of Buchbinder´s repertoire. For the outstanding recording of the complete piano work by Joseph Haydn, he received the Grand Prix du Disque. Meanwhile Rudolf Buchbinder prefers live recordings. His cycle of all Mozart piano concertos with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, recorded live at the Vienna Konzerthaus, was acclaimed by the famous critic Joachim Kaiser as CD of the year 1998. In the Johann Strauss Year 1999, Buchbinder released an exceptional CD of piano-transcriptions entitled Waltzing Strauss. Buchbinder´s latest hallmark of live-recordings represents both Brahms piano concertos with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under the direction of Nikolaus Harnoncourt and all five Beethoven piano-concertos with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra as soloist and conductor on the occasion of the Wiener Festwochen 2003.

One of his major concerns is the interpretation of the `New Testament´ in piano repertoire, the cyclic performance of all 32 piano-sonatas by Beethoven, which he played in over 30 cities including Munich, Vienna, Hamburg, Zurich and Buenos Aires. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung hailed Buchbinder for his complete recording of this sonata cosmos as `one of the today´s most important and competent Beethoven performers´. In his spare time, Buchbinder is interested in literature as well as in fine arts and whenever there is an opportunity between rehearsals and concert tours, he enjoys himself as an impassioned amateur painter.