Beethoven: Variations (6) in F major on a Swiss Song, WoO 64

Ronald Brautigam continues his traversal of Beethoven’s complete works for solo piano with a group of early variations.

The Dressler Variations were Beethoven’s first published work and started a forty-year association with the variation form.

The Dressler Variations are certainly less heavy-weight than his later works, but the so-called Venni Amore Variations, WoO 65 point forward to a much later period in Beethoven's œuvre.

In this series, Ronald Brautigam has previously recorded early sonatas and sonatinas from the same period as the present works. As on the previous instalment in the series, Brautigam has chosen to perform these early variations on a fortepiano after a Walter & Sohn instrument from c.1805.

Markus Schirmer regards Beethoven as one of his preferred composers and his selection of pieces, including the “Variations on a Swiss Song” shows a whimsical side to his personality. His chosen programme encompasses an enormous range of different moods.

These are lesser-known variation cycles, in the main composed by the young Beethoven for his own use as occasional pieces or encores. Appropriately they are performed by a young pianist on his second CD on this label.

Rudolf Buchbinder is firmly established as one of the most important pianists on the international scene, he is a regular guest of such renowned orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, London Philharmonic, National Symphony, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He has collaborated with the world’s most distinguished conductors including Abbado, Dohnányi, Dudamel, Frühbeck de Burgos, Giulini, Harnoncourt, Maazel, Masur, Mehta, Saraste, Sawallisch and Thielemann and is a regular guest at the Salzburger Festspiele and other major festivals around the world.

The complete Vox, Turnabout and Vanguard solo recordings

Alfred Brendel retires this year from public performance. He will give his last recital in December at Vienna’s Musikverein, in the city where he came to prominence over half a century ago. The recordings he made then for young American labels established in the wake of the Second World War, harnessing young talent in classic repertoire, have stood the test of time. They put down a marker for the music that Brendel would come almost to ‘own’ in the eyes of the piano-music-loving public: the Beethoven concertos and sonatas, Mozart concertos, Schubert, Liszt and Schoenberg. He would later bring deepening insights to the core of the Austro-German repertoire that was his mainstay, but these early recordings are of far more than merely historical value: they are the first, impetuous explorations of a true keyboard lion. Thus there is also music we don’t associate with Brendel, and to which he chose not to return, especially from Russia: Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. In sum, and at a specially reduced price, this is essential listening for anyone interested in piano music and in the career of one of the greatest living pianists.

Many of these performances have scarcely been available on CD: this is the first time they have been gathered together as a set Extensive booklet notes by pianophile Ates Orga, including a conversation piece with Brendel.