Rudolf Buchbinder and the Wiener Philharmoniker play Brahms Piano Concerts

“It is not every day that Brahms sounds as perfect as this,” enthuses the Kurier newspaper, describing Buchbinder’s performance with the Wiener Philharmoniker. The “phenomenal piano virtuoso” (Kurier) plays the First and Second Piano Concertos of Johannes Brahms in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. On the rostrum is maestro Zubin Mehta, no less, who has long been intensively associated both with the orchestra and with soloist Rudolf Buchbinder. “What Rudolf Buchbinder, the Wiener Philharmoniker and conductor Zubin Mehta delivered at the Musikverein easily deserves the accolade ‘milestone’.” (Kurier)

Making of “Die Jahreszeiten”

“Jubilation!” (Kronen Zeitung) in the Great Festival Hall in Salzburg for Joseph Haydn’s oratorio The Seasons with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. The conductor tunes his “Wiener” to peak performance and shows as few others can how “to coax the tenderest expressive pianissimo shiver from the violins and violas into the almost inaudible”, enthuses the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Thielemann conducts Strauss

A magical evening at the Salzburg Festival: soprano Renée Fleming, conductor Christian Thielemann and the Wiener Philharmoniker perform works by Richard Strauss – ‘one of those musical events that prove that excellence truly is possible’ (El País). In her interpretation of four songs for voice and orchestra by Richard Strauss, along with a scene from ‘Arabella’, Fleming wanders along the summits of vocal artistry as a diva who dares to project the innermost emotions of the music she sings. Without a trace of bombast or heaviness, Thielemann and the Philharmoniker elaborate, as Der Standard writes, ‘a new vision of the Alpine Symphony’ that is characterized by a ‘chamber-musiclike transparency’.

Salzburg Festival 2012: Mariss Jansons

With four opera productions and its concert cycle, the Vienna Philharmonic once again forming the centre of the Salzburg Festival. Furthermore, in 2012, its concerts bring the musicians not only to the Grosses Festspielhaus, where they are heard under the baton of four of the most important conductors of our times, but – with smaller forces – also to the Main Auditorium of the Mozarteum. With a programme dedicated to the second half of the 19th century, Mariss Jansons, the Vienna Philharmonic and soprano Nina Stemme offer a “superlative concert experience.” (Kurier).

BEETHOVEN 9 – Making van Beethoven

A one-of-a-kind musical event is in the making! Christian Thielemann, one of the most recognized conductors of our time, joins forces with the prestigious Wiener Philharmoniker and UNITEL, the world’s leading audiovisual production company for classical music, in a monumental project: BEETHOVEN 9, the recording of all nine symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven for TV, DVD and New Media: the “Beethoven cycle of the 21st century”! Using the newest technology of our century, UNITEL and Austrian Television (ORF) produce this “super-cycle” in the Golden Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein in HD and 5.0 Surround Sound. BEETHOVEN 9 kicked off in December 2008 with the recording of the First and Second Symphonies. At the rate of two recordings per year, the cycle will be completed by April 2010. The genesis and unfolding of this project will be accompanied by a documentary filmed in HD. Between 2010 and 2013 the orchestra will crown the venture with special event performances of the complete cycle in major cities around the world. These concert cycles will rank among the musical highlights of these years. They will be accompanied by the recordings, which will be released prior to the start of the world tour, when international attention is at its peak. Music lovers can enjoy Beethoven’s symphonies either live in the host cities or on television, Internet or DVD. Live transmission from the Golden Hall is possible already during the recording stage. BEETHOVEN 9 brings to a new climax the longstanding collaboration between Thielemann, who enjoys a sterling reputation as an interpreter of Beethoven and the German Romantics, and the Wiener Philharmoniker, which has been cultivating the music of Beethoven since its founding nearly 170 years ago and is one of the few great orchestras to have preserved its unique sound. UNITEL CLASSICA can look back on more than 40 years of collaboration with the Wiener Philharmoniker and on its pioneering cycles of Beethoven’s symphonic works with Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein.

Salzburg Festival: Opening Concert 2009

The opening of the Salzburg Festival, for many regarded as the world’s most renowned music festival, is by tradition a high-profile event. In 2009,this first concert given by the Wiener Philharmoniker was conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. The program is, in honor of the 80th birthday of the great Austrian conductor (6 Dec. 2009), a purely Austrian. Though it may seem unusual at first glance, under Harnoncourt’s direction, the disparate works fuse into a moving, slightly melancholy portrait of the Viennese dance in the early 19th century. The concert opens with Anton Webern’s delicate orchestration of Schubert’s “Six German Dances,” which segue into two polkas and a waltz by Josef Strauß, the younger – and bolder – composer brother of “Walzerkönig” Johann Strauß Jr. With this alternation of bittersweet and brassy dances, the stage is set for Harnoncourt’s staggering reading of Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony, in which the dance of death – so Viennese yet so universal – seems to have served as the composer’s model. This concert adds a new milestone to UNITEL CLASSICA’s longtime partnership with the Salzburg Festival, as well as with Harnoncourt and the Wiener Philharmoniker.

The Beethoven Piano Concertos

No other pianist plays Beethoven in such a supremely classic manner and at such a high level’, writes Vienna’s Kurier about Rudolf Buchbinder’s performance of all five Beethoven piano concertos with the Wiener Philharmoniker. Buchbinder, who has given many cyclical performances of these works all over the world, performs here both as soloist and conductor.