As of: February 1, 2024, 11:33 a.m
By: Markus Thiel
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Rudolf Buchbinder is once again out and about as a Beethoven marathon man.
© Marco Borggreve
When you think of Rudolf Buchbinder, you almost automatically think of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Simply because the 77-year-old has played all the sonatas and piano concertos countless times.
In the Munich Isarphilharmonie he is now performing the five piano concertos with four orchestras.
Do you have to change a lot given the different orchestras?
No.
These are orchestras I know well.
I've done something similar before in Vienna; there's a CD box of it.
The Munich order of the concerts, namely fourth, third, second, first, fifth, came about by chance.
Even in my cycles with the Beethoven sonatas, I never proceed chronologically.
I'm not a senior teacher.
What was the first Beethoven concerto you played?
The first, at ten years old.
I can't remember exactly what it was like.
But there are photos of this performance in the Great Hall of the Vienna Music Association.
I just wonder today how I was able to play it as a little boy, as Gschrapp, as we say in Vienna.
At the beginning you are completely unconcerned.
And inflexible.
As students, for example, we heard Pablo Casals playing Bach's cello suites - and were horrified by his interpretations, especially the rubati.
Only as the years go by do you become freer; we didn't understand that back then.
So you're taking more and more freedom in your concerts?
That's the way it is.
I'm very spontaneous, it's different every day.
Thank God my wife is always in the audience and she is often surprised by the news.
But I don't do this consciously.
I don't even know why I do it.
On the other hand, you never allow yourself any extravagances because you no longer have to prove anything to yourself or the world.
There is always a certain line.
I do it my way.
Of course I have a certain level of security, but from this basis I can afford a lot.
If you have to pay attention to whether a passage is correct or not, then you shouldn't play the piece at all.
Otherwise you won't be able to make music.
That doesn't mean I'm never nervous.
The older I get, the more nervous I am.
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So there are more and more rituals on the day of a concert?
Not that one.
My only ritual is: I try to attend the concert as late as possible.
I once chatted with Lorin Maazel about nervousness.
He advised me two things: “Rudi, just concentrate on the first note, everything else will come naturally.” And: “Rudi, for heaven’s sake don’t practice anything in the artist’s room before the concert.
If you make a mistake there, it will have a bad impact on the concert.”
Do you listen to your older recordings? And maybe annoyed about it?
My first records are still in their original packaging, I don't even want to listen to them.
I no longer identify at all with my first Beethoven sonata cycle, which I recorded over 40 years ago.
But photos from my childhood fascinate me.
There is a recording of a Chopin etude on my homepage.
I play a wrong note almost at the end.
But otherwise I'm surprised and even shocked at how much one can instinctively grasp at this age.
You simply can't lose your spontaneity, no matter how much you ponder over the works and gain experiences.
Who are you playing for anyway?
For the music, for the composer.
I am just a practitioner.
The audience goes to an artist to hear the composer.
You were musically socialized in Vienna. Does something like this inevitably lead to Beethoven?
Probably.
Beethoven's mask used to hang in our small apartment, so he has haunted me since birth.
Beethoven was and is a central task for me.
He is important to me as a composer and as a person.
If I could meet Beethoven, I wouldn't ask him any questions.
I would want to sit in the corner of Beethoven's room, invisible, for 24 hours.
Would you like him?
I think so.
He wasn't unlikeable.
He longed for love and warmth throughout his life.
You can feel this particularly in his piano sonatas.
At the end of Opus 7 you find yourself in tears.
You are a pianist, conduct from the piano and are also the festival director in Grafenegg. Does it sometimes get too much for you?
Not at all.
Grafenegg is actually my hobby.
And conducting from the piano, I've done that over 500 times.
I see it as great, collaborative chamber music.
The work happens in the rehearsal.
At the concert I only give more impulses; the lips and eyes are important.
Do you see the festival, where a hall will soon be named after you, as a kind of legacy?
I am moved and touched that I can still experience all of this.
You are now talking about the former riding school.
It will be enlarged and you can then look into the garden from the newly designed hall.
With 550 seats, this will be an ideal chamber music hall.
I've been in Grafenegg for 17 years now.
And no one could have imagined the success of the festival in their wildest dreams.
We provided cultural and music education there and took many people to their first concert.
Our youth funding enables young listeners to experience world stars for ten euros.
For example, it doesn't bother me at all when people applaud after a sentence.
But if they come back and go to other halls, then I see that as a great benefit.
And do you always go on vacation after the four Grafenegg weeks?
I'm not a vacationer - to my wife's chagrin.
The interview was conducted by Markus Thiel.
Concerts
on February 6th, 15th and 25th and April 13th;
Telephone 089/93 60 93.