Víkingur Ólafsson has won the Limelight 2020 Recording of the Year for his album of music by Debussy and Rameau on Deutsche Grammophon (4837701). This may be only his third recording for the Yellow Label, but the young Icelandic pianist has made repeated waves with his distinctive approach to programming and clarity of technique. “No pianist since the maverick figure of Glenn Gould has stamped his signature on the piano repertoire with such exciting individuality of spirit and intelligence of execution as the young Icelandic virtuoso Víkingur Ólafsson,” wrote Michael Quinn in his five-star review.
“It’s a huge honour,” Ólafsson said on receiving the award. “One of my pianistic idols is William Kapell, who was the teacher of my teacher at Juilliard. He was returning from his last tour to Australia when his plane crashed somewhere outside of San Francisco and I always remember that after his last concert he said to the journalists at the airport, ‘I’m never coming back to this country – the Australian critics are so tough and unfair!’ So, to get...
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I’m totally with you on that Ólafsson recording. I hadn’t heard of him until I read your review a few months ago of the Debussy/Rameau album, but totally fell down the rabbit hole of his recordings once I’d listened to it. It’s simultaneously great playing, amazing audio technology (has a piano ever sounded better?), an interesting mix of music *and* you could drop plenty of the tracks into a Spotify “Chilled Piano” playlist and he’d find fans there as well.
He’s made me fall in love with listening to piano music all over again, so thanks for the heads up, Limelight!