A series of key works

Few musicians have engaged with Ludwig van Beethoven's music as intensively, and over such a long period, as legendary pianist Rudolf Buchbinder.

With three recordings of the German composer's 32 piano sonatas and performing all 32, in cycles, all over the world more than 60 times, from May 9-17, Buchbinder is presenting Beethoven's complete piano sonatas at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing.

"In every sonata, Beethoven expressed his emotions, like anger and joy. I am never finished with this music. I learn something new every time I play the sonatas and it is a challenge every time," says the pianist.

"For a very long time, I have been performing Beethoven's music, which has been a personal journey for me. Like my wife, these works have accompanied me for years," adds Buchbinder.

Between 1783 and 1823, Beethoven wrote the piano sonatas, which were dramatic in character and demanding of technique.

It is not the first time that Buchbinder plays the complete collection of Beethoven's piano sonatas in China. In 2021, he played them all during the 15th Beijing Music Festival. Welcomed like an old friend by Chinese audiences, he has performed Beethoven's piano concertos, Nos 1, 2 and 5 with the Vienna Philharmonic at the NCPA and, from 2016-19, he played in China for four consecutive years, including a concert with German orchestra the Staatskapelle Dresden at the NCPA in 2016. In 2019, again with the Staatskapelle Dresden, he played Beethoven's five piano concertos in two concerts, of which he was also the conductor.

"My first recital in Beijing was in 1981. I flew from Vienna to London and from London to Beijing. However, my suitcase stayed in London, so I had to buy lots of things after arriving in Beijing," recalls the pianist. "I can still remember that I bought pajamas and some clothes for the concert."

Born in 1946 in Leitmeritz, a market town in what was then Czechoslovakia, and later moving to Vienna, the pianist listened to Beethoven as a child, "who seemed to be there all the time", he says.

"There was a radio sitting on top of the piano in my family home. A photo of Beethoven was hanging on the wall. When I was a little child, about 2 or 3 years old, I saw that photo and listened to the composer's music played on the radio. He (Beethoven) watched me all the time," recalls Buchbinder.

None of his family members had anything to do with music. It was his uncle who saw a piano student recruitment announcement in the newspaper and encouraged Buchbinder to participate in the audition. At the age of 5, Buchbinder became the youngest student ever to be enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Music and, five years later, he made his stage debut. The interpretations of his classical and romantic repertoire rest on technical foundations established during his studies with Bruno Seidlhofer in Vienna.

As a teenager, Buchbinder gave a recital tour in North and South America and, in 1966, he won a special prize at the second Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. In the 1970s, he received international acclaim for his recordings of Joseph Haydn's complete piano sonatas and other keyboard works. His reputation as an artist of the utmost integrity and discernment was soon enhanced with the release of the first of three complete recordings of Beethoven's piano sonatas.

"After the first recording of the piano sonatas, I didn't know if I should record them again. A friend of mine said to me: 'You should record them again, because you are a pianist with freedom of expression'," Buchbinder says.

"My life is a life for music. Beethoven has been a big part of it," he says, adding that his repertories also include works by many other composers, such as Wolfgang Mozart, Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms.

Marking Buchbinder's 75th birthday in December 2021, Deutsche Grammophon presented the pianist's complete recording of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas and five piano concertos.

In 2014, at the Salzburg Festival in Austria, Buchbinder became the first pianist to play all of Beethoven's piano sonatas at a single event, which was recorded live.

"I never listen to my past recordings because music always changes. Each time, I play it differently," says the pianist.

Buchbinder is not only a great pianist, but also attaches great importance to researching source material. His private collection of sheet music includes 39 different editions of Beethoven's complete piano sonatas and an extensive archive of first printings, original editions and copies of the signature piano parts of both piano concertos by Brahms.

"I always tell my students to read books about the composers. For Beethoven, I let them read the composer's earliest will," says the pianist, referring to the "Heiligenstadt Testament" written in 1802, where Beethoven, depressed and unable to hide his increasing infirmity, revealed his deafness and laid bare his soul.