Headline : Víkingur Ólafsson: Tiny Desk Concert

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Top-tier concert pianists commonly perform on nine-foot grand pianos. However, when they visit the Tiny Desk, it's our job to convince them to scale down to our diminutive upright. We got no argument from Víkingur Ólafsson, the 40-year-old star pianist from Iceland.

His eyes lit up when he saw our instrument. He immediately removed its upper panel, then secured the practice pedal, which drops a curtain of felt between the hammers and the strings, producing a muted, intimate sound, allowing the music to be practically whispered to us.

The pieces Ólafsson chooses are gentle, and for him nostalgic, recalling the countless hours spent at his own upright piano in his childhood bedroom.

J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations is "an encyclopedia of how you can think and dream on the keyboard," Ólafsson says, after opening with the work's featherlight Aria and vigorous first variation. His phrasing is warm and lilting, and as detailed as a Vermeer.

Read more from the original article on here at npr.org.

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