Festival Music

Rudolf Buchbinder

Playfair Library Hall

Michael Tumelty

Four stars

I’M going to be completely irresponsible (I’ve been dying to say that for decades) and, for today, suspend my ongoing qualifications about pianist Rudolf Buchbinder’s penchant for high velocity tempos, splashy playing and so on, as we’ve witnessed them so far in his cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas. (Don’t worry; the Scrooge of musical generosity will be back, grumpy as ever, in Friday’s paper.) The reason for the change of tone is simple. On Monday night, the elegant interior of the Playfair Library, and probably the surrounding grounds of Old College on South Bridge, were subjected to a roar of volcanic excitement such as the area has probably never witnessed in its distinguished history. It was a nerve-shaking eruption of sound, almost physical in its impact.

This was the concert crowd going wild for the programme Buchbinder had just played with astounding elan, with three Sonatas, every one a masterpiece, and climaxing in that bellicose, majestic, bonkers Hammerklavier Sonata, with the New Age finale where the music sounds, as I once remarked to another pianist, as though Beethoven has completely lost the plot and brought in a squad of riveters to help him build the thing.

I was pummelled by the volume and sheer force of the outburst, and decided this had to be reflected in the review. (Nothing to do with the possibility of my being lynched if I’d said otherwise, of course.) It was amazing, with Buchbinder, looking unruffled, but totally off the leash and unusually piratical in his playing. It was a stonking line-up of sonatas (including wee opus 90) that is worth putting under the microscope sometime soon.

ends