Beethoven Brett Dean

Celebrated pianist and renowned Beethoven specialist Rudolf Buchbinder will release his first album on Deutsche Grammophon. The collaboration sees him record not only his own new interpretation of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations but to commission 12 new variations himself, echoing the original story where in 1819 music publisher and composer Anton Diabelli wrote a 32-bar German Dance – a forerunner of the waltz – and sent it to more than 50 Austrian composers, asking each of them to write a variation on his original theme.

A leader in music of the Classical and early Romantic periods, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra enjoys a high profile nationally and internationally through its world-wide broadcasts and award-winning recordings. Winner of backto- back ‘Best Classical Recording’ limelight Awards in 2007 and 2008, the TSO is the only Australian orchestra to have released recordings of the complete symphonies of Beethoven and Schumann. The TSO also champions music by Australian composers, and the Australian Music Program, founded in 2003, is one of the TSO’s key initiatives. To date, the TSO has released on the ABC Classics label 18 CDs featuring works by Australian composers ranging from Peter Sculthorpe and Richard Meale to Elena Kats- Chernin and Brett Dean. The TSO, which is resident in Hobart’s purposebuilt Federation Concert Hall, has a full complement of 47 musicians. Declared a Tasmanian Icon in 1998, the TSO enjoys a high level of support among the Tasmanian community.

Since the mid-1980s, Frank Peter Zimmermann has earned recognition as one of the world’s leading violinists, admired not only for his technical skill and interpretive intelligence, but also for his versatility in a wide-ranging repertoire. His extensive discography ranges from Bach concertos and Beethoven sonatas to works by composers such as Martinů, Ligeti, Magnus Lindberg and Brett Dean. He waited until the fourth decade of his career, however, to take on Bach’s Sei solo a Violino senza Basso accompagnato, the six sonatas and partitas for solo violin.

Since the mid-1980s, Frank Peter Zimmermann has earned recognition as one of the leading violinists, admired not only for his technical skill and interpretive intelligence, but also for his versatility in a wide-ranging repertoire. His extensive discography spans from Bach concertos and Beethoven sonatas to works by composers such as Ligeti, Magnus Lindberg and Brett Dean. But during the four decades that Zimmermann has been making recordings, he has never previously recorded Bach’s Sei solo, the six sonatas and partitas for solo violin which form an absolute pinnacle in the repertoire for the instrument.