Martin Stadtfeld

Pianist Martin Stadtfeld has concentrated his efforts on Bach at a moment when fewer performers devote themselves to that composer on a modern instrument. Over time his programming has moved ahead to embrace works from the Romantic period.

Born in Koblenz on October 19, 1980, then part of West Germany, Stadtfeld spent his childhood in the small mountain community of Gackenbach roughly thirty minutes away. He emerged early as a prodigy, giving his first public recital at nine after studying with Hubertus Weimer. At thirteen he entered the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt, where he worked with Lev Natochenny while continuing ordinary secondary classes at the Landesmusikgymnasium Rheinland-Pfalz. Upon completing his studies there in 2000 he had already claimed first place in the Nikolai Rubinstein Competition in Paris in 1997. Another major victory followed at the International Bach Competition in Leipzig. Those successes brought offers to appear at numerous Bach festivals across Europe and subsequently at leading summer events in German-speaking regions, among them the Salzburg Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. Sony Classical signed him in 2003, and two years later he issued a recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, BWV 988—an ambitious statement from a pianist still early in his career.

He has performed as concerto soloist with prominent ensembles, chiefly in German-speaking countries—the Munich Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra—while also venturing farther afield with the Czech Philharmonic and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Although he has remained closely tied to Sony Classical and to Bach’s music, his releases from the 2010s onward have broadened to include albums centered on Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. Stadtfeld has long sought to introduce classical repertoire to younger listeners, a commitment reflected in the 2020 release Beethoven für Kinder. He stayed productive through the COVID-19 pandemic, issuing the albums Piano Songbook and Christmas Piano in 2021. In 2023 he brought out the distinctive double album Baroque Colours, which gathers numerous short pieces from the Baroque era.