Víkingur Ólafsson: Johann Sebastian Bach – Goldberg Variations

Music critic’s reviews of Víkingur Ólafsson are full of superlatives. The Icelandic pianist has received praise for both his technique and his interpretive power. “Ólafsson is revitalising classical music”, The Economist recently stated.

Now, at the top his career, the piano player takes on J.S.Bach’s famous Goldberg Variations, known as a monument in piano literature.

The work is not a monument in the same sense as static statues of old men of note. It is more like a mountain which requires not only technique and interpretive power but also extreme control to climb. Or “volcanic temperament, great virtuosity and a taste for challenges”, as the French newspaper Le Monde described the pianist’s attributes.

Ólafsson has visited Helsinki before, but the Helsinki Festival concert is his first solo performance in Finland.