Ólafur Arnalds / Alice Sara Ott: The Chopin Project (LP)

The award-winning Icelandic pop/classical musician Ólafur Arnalds has always been deeply moved by Chopin's piano music, but had become increasingly fed up with the constant and standardized "perfection" of relevant recordings. This gave him the urge to approach Chopin differently with his own recording interpretation. "Why should we only use the technology available to us as a tool and not also as a means of interpretation? Why shouldn't the microphones, the room - the sound - also be contributors to the performance?" The Chopin Project was created in partnership with the great German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott. With his selection of Chopin works, Arnalds created an emotional arc for the CD and composed intermezzi for string quintet, piano and synthesizer, inspired by the atmosphere and motifs of these pieces. In the production process, Ott and Arnalds created an intimate, fragile and often charmingly imperfect sound using old, unusual or prepared pianos, recorded using old-fashioned recording equipment. The result is a unique musical examination of Chopin's works by two exceptional artists.