Beethoven: Variations (6) in G major on the duet 'Nel cor più non mi sento' from the opera La Molinara by Giovanni Paisiello, WoO 70

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.

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.

Wilhelm Kempff (1895–1991), one of the great piano masters, receives an exceptional tribute from the label with which he was most closely associated.

This is a beautiful, limited-edition 35-CD box of Kempff’s complete solo repertoire on DG and Decca Classics.

It includes the stereo Beethoven sonata cycle, the Schubert sonata cycle, generous anthologies of Bach, Brahms, Liszt, Schubert, and Schumann – plus Chopin and Baroque. There are many rarities, not readily available at present.

It comes with a Bonus CD of four early recordings from the 1930s – Bach, Beethoven, Schumann and Schubert/Liszt, all first-time releases – and a short series of spoken recordings by Kempff (synopses in English and French in booklet)

The booklet essay is a warm tribute from piano expert Gregor Willmes.

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.