Kit Armstrong performs Bach’s Goldberg Variations and its predecessors
This new recording includes the following:
Bach, J S:
Goldberg Variations, BWV988
Bull, J:
Walsingham
Byrd:
Hughe Ashton’s Ground
Sweelinck:
Mein junges Leben hat ein End – variations
Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott
All performed by Kit Armstrong (piano)
When Kit Armstrong was only 14, he overcame his mentor Alfred Brendel’s reluctance to take on pupils. According to Brendel: ‘He played so beautifully that I thought to myself, “I have to make time for him”. It was a performance that really led you from the first to the last note’.
Soon Armstrong was winning international prizes both as pianist and as composer and was appearing as soloist at some of the world’s foremost venues. At the Concertgebouw, Armstrong mesmerized his audience with Bach’s monumental Goldberg Variations – preceded by earlier polyphonic variation masterpieces by William Byrd, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and John Bull.
Here is Kit Armstrong playing Bach:
