Ronald Brautigam

Ronald Brautigam, one of the Netherlands’ leading musicians, is remarkable not only for his virtuosity and musicality but also for the eclectic nature of his musical interests. He studied in Amsterdam, London and the US with Rudolf Serkin. In 1984 he was awarded the Nederlandse Muziekprijs, the highest Dutch musical award.

Ronald Brautigam performs regularly with leading European orchestras under distinguished conductors such as Riccardo Chailly, Charles Dutoit, Bernard Haitink, Frans Brüggen, Philippe Herreweghe, Christopher Hogwood, Andrew Parrott, Bruno Weil, Iván Fischer and Edo de Waart.

Besides his performances on modern instruments Ronald Brautigam has developed a great passion for the fortepiano. He has performed with leading orchestras such as the Orchestra of the 18th Century, Tafelmusik, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Hanover Band, Freiburger Barockorchester, Concerto Copenhagen and l'Orchestre des Champs-Elysées.

He is also a devoted player of chamber music, regularly working together with Isabelle van Keulen, Melvyn Tan and Alexei Lubimov.

In 1995 Ronald Brautigam began what has proved a highly successful association with the Swedish label BIS. Among the more than 30 titles released so far are Mendelssohn's Piano Concertos with Nieuw Sinfonietta Amsterdam, and the complete piano works of Mozart and Haydn on the fortepiano. The year 2004 saw the release of the first of a 17CD
Beethoven cycle, also on the fortepiano. Already after the appearance of the first five volumes this series has become firmly established as the reference recording as far as fortepiano cycles are concerned. Many reviewers have made even greater claims for it, as in the US magazine Fanfare: 'This could be a Beethoven piano sonata cycle that challenges the very notion of playing this music on modern instruments, a stylistic paradigm shift.' And the Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote: 'One feels almost as if one were a contemporary of Beethoven’s, one of the first, immensely astonished – not to say agitated – individuals to hear this music.' Besides his work for BIS, Ronald Brautigam has also recorded piano concertos by Shostakovich, Hindemith and Frank Martin with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly, for Decca. His recordings have earned him two Edison Awards, two Diapasons d'Or and one Diapason d’Or de l’année, eight Choc du Mois (Le Monde de la Musique) and, in 2004, a 'Cannes Classical Award' for that year's best piano solo recording.