Recital Rudolf Buchbinder

No, Rudolf Buchbinder didn’t get the season wrong. If you think he is welcoming you at the start of his recital with a German Christmas carol from 1835 (known as Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann), then you have the melody correct. But Mozart composed his variations on the French folk song Ah, vous dirai-je Maman long before the poet Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote new words for the tune. Buchbinder, the dean of world-class pianists, will show how wittily, intelligently, and imaginatively Mozart was able to transform this simple song. He then turns his attention to his “mainstay,” Ludwig van Beethoven — more precisely: to the famous Waldstein Sonata, which begins with feverishly energetic mania, only to switch to a rustic accent in the final rondo, where the music begins to swing like jazz. Buchbinder and Beethoven — they simply belong together. He has already performed complete cycles of the composer’s 32 piano sonatas more than 60 times, contributing to their performance history in the process. But the Austrian virtuoso is also completely in his element with Chopin, as he will demonstrate in the second half of the program with the magnificent Piano Sonata in B minor.