Johann Sebastian Bach: Transcriptions & Variations

This is German piano music and German piano playing at its best. Taking as their template the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, later composer-pianists Franz Liszt, Max Reger, and Wilhelm Kempff wrote transcriptions of and variations on the master's works, thereby granting the music the full range of a modern concert grand plus the full benefit of a super virtuoso technique. The result is piano music of indisputable weight, undeniable density, and almost unbearable profundity -- also known as German piano music. Similarly, pianist Gerhard Oppitz has taken as his model his German forbearers, particularly Wilhelm Kempff, the doyen of German pianists, thereby assuming an imperious tone, an introverted interpretation, and a not quite super virtuoso technique -- also known as German piano playing.
And it works magnificently. The sheer concentrated intensity of Oppitz's performances of Reger's Bach Variations and Fugue or Liszt's Präludium und Fuge easily overcomes any misgivings about the occasional slipped note or snapped rhythm. Even better, the tenderly soulful intimacy of Oppitz's performances of Kempff's ethereal arrangements of six of Bach's choral works effortlessly transcends any qualms about the legitimacy of arranging works from one medium into another. And even though his performance of Busoni's mind-boggling, soul-piercing, and heart-stopping transcription of the Chaconne from Bach's D minor Partita for solo violin may not quite climb the highest peaks of the work's rarefied super virtuosity -- check out Michelangeli's numinous, luminous, and altogether glorious account for that -- Oppitz's performance is still able to transfix, transform, and transmigrate the soul of the listener. And that, after all, is what great German piano playing is like at its best. Hänssler's digital piano sound is massive enough and detailed enough, but perhaps too close and clattery in the climaxes. ~ James Leonard, All Music Guide