Johann Sebastian Bach

Featuring

Víkingur Ólafsson
Johann Sebastian Bach
Ferruccio Busoni
Sergei Rachmaninoff

Did you know?

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Pianist Víkingur Ólafsson believes Bach's music is greater than any individual, generation, school of thought, or even Bach himself.

Cultural Impact

Bach's keyboard music has served as a musical mirror, reflecting the tastes and values of different generations of pianists in the modern age.

Compositional Technique

Bach frequently borrowed from himself, using the same or similar musical motifs in different, sometimes contrasting works.

Interpretation

Bach's scores offer few performance indications, leaving elements like tempi, dynamics, and articulation open to interpretation by performers.

Composer Biography

Bach was largely self-taught, having his formal training cut short at age fifteen by his brother's death, and he was known for his relentless pursuit of musical knowledge.

Composition History

Bach's Harpsichord Concerto in D minor (BWV 974) is his own arrangement of an Oboe Concerto by Alessandro Marcello, which opened up a new world of Italian style to Bach during his second Weimar period.

Album & Artwork

The album features a mix of Bach's original compositions and transcriptions by other composers like Busoni, Stradal, Rachmaninov, Siloti, and Ólafsson himself.