Rudolf Buchbinder: Soirée de Vienne

December 8, 2022, 9:00 am

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Soirée de Vienne sounds echoes of pianist Rudolf Buchbinder’s home city in the form of music closely associated with it. “We all have impossible dreams,” says Buchbinder. “And one such dream gave rise to this album: I’d so much like to attend a Viennese soirée where all the composers on this recording are assembled: Strauss, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, and Beethoven.” The album opens with Soirée de Vienne, a concert paraphrase of themes from Johann Strauss works created by Alfred Grünfeld, darling of imperial Vienna’s salon scene. It concludes with Soirées de Vienne: Valse-Caprice No. 6, Franz Liszt’s reworking of melodies by Schubert. “These two pieces,” notes Buchbinder, “embody the spirit of a good evening get-together: inspiring, good-humored, effervescent, but always probing the depths.”