{"id":12327,"date":"2023-12-18T21:52:03","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T21:52:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/?p=12327"},"modified":"2023-12-18T21:52:03","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T21:52:03","slug":"icelandic-pianists-goldberg-variations-surpasses-20-million-streams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/2023\/12\/18\/icelandic-pianists-goldberg-variations-surpasses-20-million-streams\/","title":{"rendered":"Icelandic Pianist\u2019s Goldberg Variations Surpasses 20 Million Streams"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"V\u00edkingur
V\u00edkingur \u00d3lafsson. (Courtesy Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Deutsche Grammophon announced V\u00edkingur \u00d3lafsson\u2019s recording of Bach\u2019s Goldberg Variations has been streamed over 20 million times.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s Up: <\/b>This week, the recording label Deutsche Grammophon <\/span>announced in a press release<\/span><\/a> that <\/span>V\u00edkingur \u00d3lafsson<\/span><\/a>\u2019s 2023 recording of Bach\u2019s Goldberg Variations has been streamed over 20 million times. The album was released in October, achieving the Icelandic pianist pop star status as far as <\/span>classical music streaming numbers<\/span><\/a> are concerned.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Refresher: <\/b>V\u00edkingur \u00d3lafsson, 39, grew up in Reykjav\u00edk before moving to New York City to study at the Juilliard School. He has performed with countless orchestras around the world including the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In 2016, he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon (DG). His albums with DG, including <\/span>Philip Glass Piano Works<\/span><\/a> (2017), <\/span>Johann Sebastian Bach<\/span><\/a> (2018), <\/span>Debussy Rameau<\/span><\/a> (2020), <\/span>Mozart & Contemporaries<\/span><\/a> (2021) and <\/span>From Afar<\/span><\/a> (2022), have been streamed over 600 million times.<\/span><\/p>\n

Digging Deeper: <\/b>This season, \u00d3lafsson is focusing solely on Bach\u2019s Goldberg Variations, which he will perform 88 times worldwide over the course of the year. \u00d3lafsson describes the piece as \u201c<\/span>like a life cycle<\/span><\/a>,\u201d in which he revels in the individuality of each of Bach\u2019s variations. This differs from how Glenn Gould played the piece in <\/span>his 1981 recording<\/span><\/a>, in which Gould sought stylistic cohesiveness within Bach\u2019s 30 variations. Fans of Gould\u2019s may enjoy hearing \u00d3lafsson\u2019s very different take.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deutsche Grammophon announced V\u00edkingur \u00d3lafsson\u2019s recording of Bach\u2019s Goldberg Variations has been streamed over 20 million times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":12328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[86,3,87],"tags":[368],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/12\/Vi\u0301kingur-O\u0301lafsson.jpg","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12327"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12330,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12327\/revisions\/12330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12327"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}