Rudolf Buchbinder was born on 1 December 1946 in Leitmeritz, a market town in Czechoslovakia. He made meteoric progress on his parents’ piano and, at the age of five, became the youngest student ever to be admitted to the Vienna Academy of Music; five years later, he performed for the Austrian Chancellor at the Musikverein.
His interpretations of the Viennese Classical and Romantic repertoire rest on technical foundations established during his studies with Bruno Seidlhofer in Vienna.
In his teens Buchbinder gave a recital tour in North and South America, and returned to the United States in 1966 to win a special prize at the Second Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. In the 1970s he received international acclaim for his recordings of Haydn’s complete piano sonatas and other keyboard works. His reputation as an artist of the utmost integrity and discernment was soon enhanced with the release of the first of three complete recordings of Beethoven’s piano sonatas.
Here is Rudolf Buchbinder playing the music of Chopin:
