Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafsson pays tribute to the master of minimal music, Philip Glass. Olafsson was one of a handful of young pianists selected by Glass to perform all of his Etudes together in London, and the reviews were ecstatic. In addition to the Etudes for solo piano, the album includes reworks of the originals for piano and string quartet with the Siggi String Quartet.
The pianists fascination with reinterpreting the Piano Etudes grew as he toured and performed the works with Glass himself. "On the surface, they seem to be filled with repetitions. But the more one plays and thinks about them, the more their narratives seem to travel along in a spiral," he explains. "My approach to each of the etudes is to enable the listener to create his or her own personal space of reflection. A partnership with Deutsche Grammophon, home of so many legendary pianists, will ensure my music reaches the ears of many more of those listeners. So of course I am honoured and excited to join DG."
"Víkingur is already very well-known in his native Iceland, where hes been named Musician of the Year four times. He brings a new Nordic sensibility to the classical repertoire, making him an exceedingly good choice as artistic director and curator of major music festivals", notes Dr Clemens Trautmann, President of Deutsche Grammophon. "At DG, weve known for a while that Iceland is a hot-spring of top-notch musical creativity and Víkingur is one of its leading figures. Now we look forward to bringing his immense musical talent in classical as well as new repertoire to the attention of a worldwide audience."
