Piano Concertos [Box set]

Mozart (Artist), Buchbinder (Artist), Wiener Simphoniker (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 16, 2005)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 9
• Format: Box set
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Profil - G Haenssler
• ASIN: B0002O37X6
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #299,721 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Preferred performances in this genre, June 5, 2006

By 

Larry VanDeSande - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Piano Concertos (Audio CD)

Buchbinder's Mozart piano concertos, when released inidividually on the Calig label, got hardly any of the good or bad press this set has received. Only Third Ear Classical Music, among the major publications that comprehensively review classical recordings, even ranked this set, saying it was one of the better ones.

I owned many of these recordings on the Calig label and was consistently astonished by the lack of publicity they received. Several traits differentiate these recordings from the complete or near complete sets by other major pianists. They are:

1. Buchbinder's pianism, which is dyanmic yet moderate, and is consistently truthful sounding. This set eschews the overthinking and overdramatic approach that marred Buchbinder's recording of the Brahms concertos some years back. At the same time, he produces a consistently pleasing tone across the set, whether he is working from the earliest concerto (No. 5) or the newer recording of the most mature concertos, Nos. 26 and 27.

2. Electricity. Most of these recordings were made during concerts in the Vienna Konzerthaus and, therefore, have the adrenaline and immediacy of concert -- some call it "live" -- musicmaking. Buchbinder, who can overthink scores and pound the keyboard mercilessly in the studio, is consistently involved with the music in a partucularly Mozartean way even when, such as in the "Elvira Madigan" Concerto No. 21, he uses his own cadenzas.

3. There is a remarkably natural sound to these recordings that gives them a pleasant overall bloom very much like you would hear from the third row of a concert hall. The exquisite miking of these recordings produces a highly Viennese sound.

4. Masculinity. Perhaps most remarkably, Buchbinder -- who conducts all the concertos from the keyboard -- is able to produce a wondrous tone while maintaining Mozartean style and producing some of the most masculine versions of these concertos I've ever heard.

He does this, in part, by using the timpani in ways most conductors do not and ensuring you can hear the timpani. I think this ability to generate masculine drama while simultanesouly holding back the reins of the orchestra and playing akin to Mozart is the most endearing trait of the set.

In addition, there is a complete lack of glibness or superficiality in these recordings. I had heard all the great pianists perform these concertos and was never much of a fan of any of them until I heard this set. If these are the qualities you seek in Mozart performance, you will enjoy this set.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mozart Piano Concertos Played by a Master, August 17, 2005

By 

J Scott Morrison (Middlebury VT, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Piano Concertos (Audio CD)

It has been my pleasure the last couple of weeks to immerse myself in the glorious piano concertos of Mozart, played and recorded live by the eminent Viennese pianist Rudolf Buchbinder leading the Vienna Symphony from the keyboard. I honestly think that if I had to limit myself to one genre of music by Mozart (for that famous desert isle we always talk about) I would choose the piano concertos, although to be honest I would probably try to sneak the da Ponte operas into the mix. Still, it is the concertos that I reach for most often. They can be exciting, soothing, dramatic, celebratory, even romantic beyond almost anything else Mozart wrote, and they are unfailingly interesting musically. I was delighted, then, to come upon these reissues of Buchbinder's complete traversal. They were initially recorded live in seven concerts and issued on the Calig label in, I believe, 1998. (And to be honest, this isn't a complete traversal. The series contains 21 concerti beginning with K. 175, the one usually designated No. 5, and does not include the two- and three-piano concerti.)

There are, of course, other complete, or nearly complete, sets including those of Murray Perahia, Alfred Brendel, Geza Anda, Mitsuko Uchida and Vladimir Ashkenazy. I've not heard them all but of the ones I know this set has the warmest most lifelike sound. There are single recordings of individual concerti that I would not want to be without (No. 27, K. 595 with Curzon/Britten; No. 20, K. 466 with Artur Rubinstein; No. 12, K. 414 by Perahia as well as some by Annie Fischer, Artur Schnabel, Emil Gilels, Lili Kraus, Maria Joăo Pires, Robert Levin and Malcom Bilson) but there is something to be said for a single pianist/conductor giving us the entire oeuvre from his perspective. He seems able to communicate both the early, simpler concerti as well as the dramatic later ones (like K. 466 and K. 491). And when it comes to those painfully beautiful Andantes (e.g., the middle movement of the A Major Concerto, No. 23, K. 488 [Mozart's only work in F sharp minor, and one of the loveliest 'songs' I know]) he is on a par with absolutely the best Mozart players I've ever heard. There are a few peculiarities, but nothing to get exercised about. For instance, Buchbinder starts his trills on the main note, not on the one above it; most experts tells us that in Mozart's day this was not done. Buchbinder supplies occasional decorated cadences, charmingly I feel, but some might object. He clearly knows and loves some concertos above others. For instance, in K. 413 he seems a little careful, but in the succeeding K. 414 he lets rip, and all to the better. (The Vienna Symphony is an equal partner as evidenced in that concerto; that catchy little unison viola fillip at phrase ends of the second theme is given its graceful due.) One could argue that Buchbinder is a little understated, but he certainly gives concluding rondos plenty of fire and fun, as in the cheerful (but contrapuntally fascinating) finale of No. 19, K. 459.

It has been my delight to hear many fine Mozart concerto performances in my long concert-going life (including those of Lillian Kallir, whose recent death saddened all Mozarteans) but my main source for this music has been recordings (as well as my own halting attempts at the keyboard). I am thrilled to add this 9-CD box to my collection of recordings of this radiantly beautiful music.

[There is, listed here at Amazon, a more expensive set of precisely the same performances by Buchbinder. This is the one to get.]

Strongly recommended.

9 CDs, TT=580mins

Scott Morrison

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous traversal of Mozart's concertos with Rudolf Buchbinder, August 10, 2010

By 

P. Adrian "Adrian" (Arad, Romania) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Piano Concertos (Audio CD)

Rudolf Buchbinder is THE VIENNESE PIANIST par excellence. His finesse of touch combined with an assured technique, his gift for melodic proceedings and virtuosic - but, necessarily, full of feeling - textures, have recommended him as a foremost interpreter of the standard keyboard repertory. Ranging from Bach to Rachmaninov, with absolutely fabulous renditions achieved in Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven or Brahms, Buchbinder's musical insights led him to a worldwide acclaimed career and to a firmly established position in the preferences of the public and critics alike.

Here Buchbinder offers an impressive traversal of Mozart's piano concertos in the select company of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. The result is amazing. Seductive and efficient in both postures - conductor and soloist - Buchbinder sparks effectively in these evergreen gems of the Viennese Classicism. Each note is polished with the passion of a jeweller working on a rare pearl and is put in a minute weighed bead, giving it that required noble glare. The mood of each concerto lives in its own right in Buchbinder's hands, being differentiated with rare instinct and knowledge.

Resuming, we have here Mozart at his most refined and vivid played by a dazzling Buchbinder! Five stars!