Gerhard Oppitz Plays Bach and Liszt

As a native of Bavaria and a pupil of Wilhelm Kempff, the German pianist Gerhard Oppitz has a profound musical connection with the great Austro-German piano tradition. But he's a thinking pianist as well as a supreme virtuoso, and both qualities are on display in this recital recorded at the Herkulessaal in Munich in 1985. He begins with Bach at his most harmonically daring, before moving to Liszt's great homage to Bach – the piano variations on "Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen". Two geniuses reaching out to each other cross the centuries, performed by an artist with the range and insight to embrace both.