William Kinderman

William Kinderman is one of those exceedingly rare pianists whose keyboard artistry is equaled, perhaps surpassed, by his uncommonly brilliant scholarship. He is the author of many books on music, including four on Beethoven and his works, one on Mozart's piano music, and one each on Wagner's Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde. He has also written numerous essays on musical subjects and fashioned new performing editions of major works, including the Beethoven string quartets. While his contributions as a scholar and pedagogue are immense, Kinderman's many admirers are likely to remember him for his impressive keyboard skills first, specifically for his interpretive acumen, the manner in which he combines his technical prowess with his intellectual grasp of the music. He is best known, not surprisingly, for his Beethoven performances: his recordings of the last three sonatas and the Diabelli Variations (a work to which he devoted two books!) have both achieved much critical acclaim. Kinderman is also well known as a writer of booklet notes that accompany classical recordings. He has, for instance, provided copious notes for several Alfred Brendel releases, including his most recent Beethoven piano concerto and sonata cycles. Brendel has expressed great admiration for Kinderman, praising him for his extraordinary scholarship and virtuoso pianistic skills. Kinderman has made most of his recordings for the Hyperion label. William Kinderman was born in Philadelphia in 1952. He studied music and philosophy at Dickinson College (bachelor's degree) and at the University of California, Berkeley (doctorate in music, 1980). He had further study in philosophy at the University of Vienna, as well as in music theory and piano (with Dieter Weber) at Vienna's Hochschule für Musik, and at Yale, in music history. From the 1980s Kinderman has regularly concertized in Canada, the U.S., and Europe, often in the format of a piano/lecture recital. In 1993 he participated in a highly praised Beethoven Workshop at Carnegie Hall with Alfred Brendel. Kinderman has taught at three major universities: the University of Victoria; the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin; and, in the new century, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Kinderman's first book, Beethoven's Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli: Genesis and Structure, was published in 1980, and and another, Mozart's Piano Music, appeared in 2006. His performance of the Diabelli Variations has been reissued in 2007 on Arietta Records, and includes a previously unreleased 45-minute lecture about the music.