A short feature on pianist Dan Tepfer's solo project Inventions / Reinventions.
Bach composed his beloved set of Inventions as study pieces for his children and students, covering eight major and seven minor keys, for a total of fifteen. But there are twenty-four possible major and minor keys, so there are nine keys missing. In the Inventions / Reinventions program, while playing Bach’s original compositions sequentially, Dan Tepfer creates his own Inventions for the missing keys, freely improvising new ones during each performance. In so doing, he follows the logic behind Bach’s beloved original pieces, in which simple musical ideas, like characters in a novel or a play, are taken on a harmonic journey to foreign keys before returning home.
The Inventions / Reinventions album, released in March 2023, spent two weeks at #1 on the Billboard Classical Chart in the US.
NPR Morning Edition feature: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/17/1164146735/jazz-pianist-dan-tepfers-latest-album-is-inventions-reinventions
New York Times concert review: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/arts/music/bach-piano-inventions-tepfer.html
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