Rudolf Buchbinder opens the Piano Festival | LUCERNE Festival

In the sold-out KKL Luzern Rudolf Buchbinder offered Beethoven's five piano concertos on two evenings, together with the Festival Strings Lucerne whom he directed from the piano - a celebrated opening to the last edition of Piano Festival | LUCERNE Festival with standing ovation.

„His dominance as a soloist is based on the experience of decades of Beethoven interpretation“, the daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung lately wrote, referring to Buchbinder’s performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Valery Gergiev and the Munich Philharmonic. „This might be one of the reasons why Buchbinder seems to be the embodiment of the anti-virtuoso“, the critic continues. „When he leads through the conflictual opening movement, this has little to do with soloistic self-presentation. The soloist becomes a narrator, an interpreter. [...] With this open, delicately singing sound, Buchbinder gets to the heart of the Largo movement. Embedded into the smooth sound of the Philharmonics, he conveys the peculiar atmosphere of this movement between serene cheerfulness and sweet melancholy. Without giving up this refinement, Buchbinder shows grim wit, for example in the quirky syncopes and the suddenly thunderous bass.“

The five piano concertos are in the focus of the Buchbinder-Beethoven cycle, hosted by the Wiener Musikerverein on the occasion of the Beethoven anniversary during the 2019-20 season. Buchbinder has the pleasure to work with five world-class orchestras and conductors for this unique project: Gewandhausorchester Leipzig/Nelsons, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks/Jansons, Münchner Philharmoniker/Gergiev, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden/Thielemann as well as Wiener Philharmoniker/Muti.