The Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson sees his instrument as a meeting place: behind the keys, he encounters composers, orchestras - and this season, the Zurich audience on several occasions.
You can ask Víkingur Ólafsson anything you like, his first reaction is almost always: "Oh, I could give you fifty answers!" When it comes to his favourite flowers, however, there's only one right away: "They're bluebells, they grow everywhere in the Icelandic wilderness. I'm happy every time I see them."
He also has an eye for nature during his visits to Zurich. It's only natural that he finds attractive subjects for his Instagram channel by the lake. But it also happens that he suddenly pulls out his mobile phone on the way to a tram stop and snaps a butterfly sitting on the asphalt. Or, during a photo shoot for the cover of this magazine, he points to the glass plant box that separates the Tonhalle foyer on the upper floor from the Kongresshaus: he would like to be photographed in there, he says, and then stands in the middle of the greenery as probably the first soloist in the history of the Tonhalle Zurich.
Such episodes not only reveal the pianist's love of nature, but also a lot about his view of the world in general and music in particular. Just as he discovers a butterfly on the pavement, he finds little beauties in the scores that could easily be overlooked or overheard. And with the same determination with which he gains access to the actually closed plant box, he pursues his own musical path.
This path has taken him to the very top. You would have to call Víkingur Ólafsson a superstar if the word didn't sound strange for someone who has no airs and graces at all. When he signs CDs, the queue of people waiting in line stretches through the entire foyer. he reaches 2.5 million people a month on Spotify (making him the spectacular number 2 behind Lang Lang). His Zurich recital with Yuja Wang last October sold out so quickly that additional chairs were placed on the stage. He also has many fans behind the scenes and in the orchestra: because he is so nice, but not at all well-behaved.
What that means could be heard at the season opening. Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 was on the programme, a repertoire hit - and a perfect template for a pianist who sees every performance as an adventure. In conversation, he is annoyed by the fact that we see far too many pictures of Brahms "with a belly and a beard"; the composer was 26 years old when he wrote this work, "and you would hear it very differently if the photos of the young, beautiful, clean-shaven Brahms were better known!" On stage, this attitude led him to seek contact with the orchestra at every opportunity - and with it the musical vitality that he had always sought.
It all started when his parents set unusual priorities: first they bought a grand piano, a Steinway Model B. What was left over in their savings had to be enough for the flat. It was a "very small basement flat", says Víkingur Ólafsson. He shared his room with his two sisters, and the living room was so tiny that there wasn't much space left next to the Steinway: "The piano was the flat, so to speak, the meeting place where everything happened."
In his case, very different things happened. His mother, a piano teacher, got him interested in Chopin and Bach. His father, an architect and composer, awakened his love of modernism, Kurtág and Stockhausen. What his parents saw as opposites belonged together for his son from an early age: the analytical and the romantic, the lush and the prickly. This has not changed to this day; so it is undoubtedly no coincidence that in the current season he is not only playing Brahms' concertos with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich as a focus artist, but also John Adams' "After the Fall", which was composed especially for him.
But as much as he loves and needs stylistic variety, he can be uncompromisingly dedicated to a single work. Last season, he performed Bach's "Goldberg Variations" in 88 concerts around the world. It was a coup from a marketing point of view, but that wasn't his intention: everyone sitting in the hall at the Zurich concert towards the end of the tour probably sensed this.
On the one hand, you could hear in every single bar how well the pianist knew the work. There was no trace of routine, on the contrary. The way he emphasised one voice and then another on the repeat, the way he highlighted details and yet never lost sight of the big picture, the way he seemed to have at least fifty answers to every musical question: it was as inspiring as it was touching. And you understood what he meant when he described his instrument as a "portal" "because it can take you anywhere".
Geographically, it didn't take him very far at first. He did study in New York at the renowned Juilliard School, the only Icelander to do so at the time. But for years afterwards, he performed exclusively in his home country, "nobody knew me outside". Iceland is a world of its own, and a musical world of its own. It was only in 1920 that a symphony orchestra first travelled to the island, and the classical tradition is far younger than elsewhere. Only just under 400,000 people live here; anyone who makes music will almost inevitably be on stage together at some point. Víkingur Ólafsson has premiered no fewer than six piano concertos by Icelandic composers - and has also realised projects with the legendary singer Björk.
They know each other in Iceland, they support each other. What's more, they are all somehow related. You realise this as soon as the pianist has finished photographing the aforementioned butterfly and is travelling through Zurich on the 9 tram for an episode of the "Tram for Two" video series with Paavo Järvi. There he talks about the "Íslendingabók", the "Book of 47 Icelanders", which lists all the people who have lived on the island since 1703 - including their family trees. The database is particularly important for young Icelanders, he says: "When I met my current wife, we consulted it immediately." After that, they breathed a sigh of relief: their relationship goes back seven generations, "to around the time of Mozart". By Icelandic standards, this is excellent, "anything over four generations is considered good here".
Fittingly, it was a very Icelandic occasion that enabled Víkingur Ólafsson to make the leap to the mainland. in 2011, he played at the widely acclaimed inauguration of the Harpa concert hall in Reykjavík; from then on, his diary began to fill up with international dates.
He enjoys travelling, and not just for the fame or the musical encounters. He "still really enjoys travelling", he says, and sees far more than just airports and concert halls. He often explores the cities in jogging shoes, and he quickly discovered a suitable route in Zurich too. He is fascinated by the museums in New York and the clothes shops and ancient monuments in Italy. And then - alongside nature - there is architecture, the second passion alongside contemporary music, which his father passed on to him. Wherever he can, he visits buildings by the Finn Alvar Aalto, the Japanese Tadao Andō or the Swiss Peter Zumthor: here he finds that "perfect relationship between discipline and imagination" that also characterises his music-making.
The only thing better than travelling is coming home. When his two young sons cling to him after a tour, he says, "that's the happiest moment in my life".
We use deepL.com for our translations into English.
