Beethoven: The Early Piano Variations by Ronald Brautigam

Ronald Brautigam

Beethoven: The Early Piano Variations

Format: CD
Label: Globe
UPC: 8711525509504
Catnr: GLO 5095
Release date: 19 August 2002

1 CD

Label
Globe

UPC
8711525509504

Catalogue number
GLO 5095

Release date
19 August 2002

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Ronald Brautigam was born in Amsterdam in 1954. He studied at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatory, the Royal Academy of Music in London and with Rudolf Serkin In the USA. In 1979, he won the Ellsabeth Everts Prize for highly talented young Dutch artists, and four years later he was awarded the official Netherlands Music Prlze. Ronald Brautigam performed with all the leading Dutch orchestras, the Royal Coneertgebouw Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra among them, with such conductors as Riccardo Chailly, Sergiu Commisssiona, Charles Dutoit, Bernard Haitink, Ferdinand Leitner, and Simon Rattle. He also regularly performs in recital. Ronald Brautigam appeared in England, France, Germnny, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia and Switzerland. In October 1984, he made his very successful debut In tbe USA with the Houston Symphony Orchestra, playing Mozart's Piano Concerto In A Major, K 488. In 1988, he played for the first time in Japan, with orchestras in Osaka, Sapporo and Nagoya. With the Royal Conccrtgebouw Orchestra and Frans Brüggen as conductor, he played Mozart in Salzburg in December 1991. Ronald Brautigam is Professor of piano at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatory.

Prachtige Variaties van Beethoven voor fortepiano
Deze opname met acht grote Variatie cyclussen van de jonge Beethoven is een waardige opvolger van het vorige album van vermaard pianist Ronald Brautigam. Voor deze werken werd er opnieuw een kopie (door Paul McNulty) van een originele Weense fortepiano gebruikt door Anton Walter, dit keer uit 1795. Dit precies het type instrument dat Beethoven zelf tot zijn beschikking had toen hij in Wenen kwam wonen in 1792. Voor dit instrument schreef hij alle Variaties en daarmee vestigde hij zijn reputatie als pianist en componist.

Ronald Brautigam werd in 1954 in Amsterdam geboren. Hij studeerde aan het Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam, de Royal Academy of Music in London en in de Verenigde Staten. Ronald Brautigam trad met alle grote Nederlandse orkesten op waaronder het Koninklijke Concertgebouworkest en het Rotterdamse Filharmonisch Orkest. Dit album is een van de weinige albums dat volledig is opgedragen aan de vroege werken van Beethoven. De opnames werden unaniem geprezen door critici van over de hele wereld.

Artist(s)

Ronald Brautigam (fortepiano)

Ronald Brautigam has deservedly earned a reputation as one of Holland’s most respected musicians, remarkable not only for his virtuosity and musicality but also for the  eclectic nature of his musical interests. He has received numerous awards including the Dutch Music Prize and a 2010 MIDEM Classical Award for best concerto recording for his CD  of Beethoven Piano Concertos with the Norrköpoing Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Parrott.
A student of the legendary Rudolf Serkin, Ronald Brautigam performs regularly with leading orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw, London Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. He has performed alongside a number of distinguished conductors including Riccardo Chailly, Charles Dutoit, Bernard Haitink, Frans Brüggen, Christopher Hogwood, Marek Janowski, Sir Roger Norrington, Marin Alsop, Ivor Bolton, Andrew Parrott, Ton Koopman, Ivan Fisher and Sir Mark Elder. Besides his performances on modern instruments Ronald Brautigam has established himself as a leading exponent of the fortepiano, working with orchestras such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Tafelmusik, 18th-Century Orchestra, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Hanover band, Concerto Copenhagen and l’Orchestre des Champs-Elysées. Brautigam’s recordings have earned a number of awards including two Edison Awards, a Diapason d’Or de l’année, a MIDEM Classical Award for best solopiano recording (2004) and in 2010 he won the MIDEM Classical Award for best concerto recording. Since September 2011 Ronald Brautigam is a Professor at the Musik-Hochschule in Basel.

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Composer(s)

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include nine symphonies, five piano concertos, one violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. Together with Mozart and Haydn, he was part of the First Viennese School. Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn, and gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost totally deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose; many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life.

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