Test 1
Celebrated pianist and renowned Beethoven specialist Rudolf Buchbinder will release his first album on Deutsche Grammophon. The collaboration sees him record not only his own new interpretation of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations but to commission 12 new variations himself, echoing the original story where in 1819 music publisher and composer Anton Diabelli wrote a 32-bar German Dance – a forerunner of the waltz – and sent it to more than 50 Austrian composers, asking each of them to write a variation on his original theme.
Buchbinder has invited 12 contemporary composers to write a variation on Diabelli’s theme including (in order of appearance) Lera Auerbach (*1973), Brett Dean (*1961), Toshio Hosokawa (*1955), Christian Jost (*1963), Brad Lubman (*1962), Philippe Manoury (*1952), Krzysztof Penderecki (*1933), Max Richter (*1966), Rodion Shchedrin (*1932), Johannes Maria Staud (*1974), Tan Dun (*1957) and Jörg Widmann (*1973). In addition Buchbinder has included in the album 8 of the variations that the original composer Diabelli received back - including from Liszt (who was barely 8 years old at the time, Schubert, Czerny and Mozart's son Franz Xaver Mozart. Listen to a first pre-release track, the variation by Max Richter today.
The full album will be released on March 6.