Deutsche Grammophon issued this live Beethoven performance in 2020, putatively in celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth. It's taken from a live recording of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15, by Rudolf Buchbinder, made at the Philharmonie in Berlin with the Berlin Philharmonic in 2016. This may seem an odd choice in that there already existed a live performance of the concerto by Buchbinder, with the Berlin Philharmonic, in the Philharmonie, on the Sony label. That might seem to make this release of most interest to fans of this legendary pianist, for the two performances are pretty close in tempo and in overall approach. The differences do not amount to a rethinking of the work, but they do have the effect of taking one into Buchbinder's mind a bit. The biggest difference is that on the Sony performance, Buchbinder conducted the performance from the keyboard, while here, the Philharmonic is led by Christian Thielemann. Compare the solo entrances in the Piano Concerto No. 1. In this performance, Buchbinder is a bit more restrained, as if to leave room for interaction between himself and Thielemann, and the orchestra is more assertive, with a strong element of the active timpani that is one of the hallmarks of this concerto. It's a rare example of how a top-flight pianist adjusts a performance to fit the circumstances, and neither version is superior to the other. Another distinctive feature of this album is the strong performance of the Six Variations for piano in F major, Op. 34, an underplayed work in which Beethoven broke new ground in the variation form. Buchbinder captures the work's adventurous quality in a performance of unusually Romantic intensity. That brings the total for the program up to only 49 minutes, and one wonders what else was on the 2016 Philharmonie program. A plus, though, is the superb live sound from the Philharmonie, an act that Deutsche Grammophon's engineers have down pat. Of most interest to Buchbinder fans, but certainly intriguing for anyone.
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