The pieces on this album were selected so as to create a coherent narrative, and simultaneously to highlight important works from the composers’ catalogue. When David Bendix Nielsen prepares his concert programmes, he always aims to offer the audience an organic narrative that presents the instrument’s many nuances and leads them through the concert as if it were a story told, with ups and downs, highs and lows, powerful outbursts, and meditative moments. With this approach in mind he has put together the album’s repertoire, where Arvo Pärt’s minimalistic and meditative pieces create contrast to Bach’s intellectual compositions, powerful settings, and beautiful chorales.
The pieces are also connected by tonality: Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major – Pärt’s Pari Intervallo in E-flat minor; Concerto in D minor – Trivium in D minor; Spiegel im Spiegel in C major – Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor. The two big pieces at the very beginning and the end encapsulate the album’s more delicate parts. The music on this album is at the core of Bendix Nielsen's concert repertoire and is some of the most beautiful organ music written by Bach and Pärt, respectively. © Orchid Classics