Dan Tepfer Connects With Bach’s Improvisatory Spirit On Inventions / Reinventions, Out Today On StorySound Records
Listen To Today’s NPR Morning Edition Interview Here
Listen To Invention / Reinventions Here
As one of his generation’s extraordinary talents, Dan Tepfer has earned an international reputation for being a pianist-composer of wide-ranging innovation, individuality and drive. Tepfer has been hailed as “a player of exceptional poise” by The New York Times, while Downbeat extolled his“ability to disappear into the music as he’s making it.”
Today, Dan Tepfer shares Inventions / Reinventions (StorySound Records), a new album that sees him “propel himself to higher orbit” (Air Mail) as he applies his considerable gifts to Johann Sebastian Bach's Two Part Inventions. The album features performances of each of Bach’s Inventionsinterleaved in sequence with nine of Tepfer’s own free improvisations in the “missing” keys to create a new full 24-key cycle.
Listen to Inventions / Reinventions here.
Earlier today, Tepfer appeared on NPR Morning Edition discussing the creative impulses and narrative threads of Bach’s Inventions and how he set about creating the new album. Listen to that interview here.
This is not Tepfer's first foray into improvisation that builds upon Bach. His 2011 recording Goldberg Variations / Variations had him play Bach’s Baroque masterpiece in full and as improvised variations of his own creation. It was an ambitious undertaking that garnered widespread acclaim, with The New York Times calling it “riveting and inspired” and New York Magazine deeming it “elegant, thoughtful, and thrilling.”
Dan says he's tapping into a less celebrated gift of Bach's: “It’s worth remembering that Bach was most known in his lifetime as an improviser. People traveled long distances, often by foot, to hear him extemporize at the organ or harpsichord. Despite the perfect compositions he left behind, in which it’s difficult to imagine changing a single note, improvisation was at the core of his being. And I hope, 300 years after he composed these pieces for his children and students, that Bach wouldn’t be too offended by a modern improviser making up some new musical stories in the windows he left open.”
Invention / Reinventions
1. Invention in C Major, BWV 772
2. Invention in C minor, BWV 773
3. Improvised Invention in Db Major
4. Improvised Invention in Db minor
5. Invention in D Major, BWV 774
6. Invention in D minor, BWV 775
7. Invention in Eb Major, BWV 776
8. Improvised Invention in Eb minor
9. Invention in E Major, BWV 777
10. Invention in E minor, BWV 778
11. Invention in F Major, BWV 779
12. Invention in F minor, BWV 780
13. Improvised Invention in Gb Major
14. Improvised Invention in Gb minor
15. Invention in G Major, BWV 781
16. Invention in G minor, BWV 782
17. Improvised Invention in Ab Major
18. Improvised Invention in Ab minor
19. Invention in A Major, BWV 783
20. Invention in A minor, BWV 784
21. Invention in Bb Major, BWV 785
22. Improvised Invention in Bb minor
23. Improvised Invention in B Major
24. Invention in B minor, BWV 786
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