J.S. Bach Partitas Nos 2, 3 & 4, BWV 826-828

Nils Anders Mortensen

Nils Anders Mortensen is a Norwegian pianist renowned for his versatility and expressive playing. Born in Flekkefjord in 1971, he began playing the piano at three, won the Norwegian Young Pianist Competition in 1986, and studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music, the École Normale in Paris and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover.

In 1996 Concerts Norway named him "Debutant of the Year", leading to an extensive national tour. He has since performed in the United States, Germany, Russia, Hungary and the Baltic states, and appeared as soloist with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra at the Bergen International Festival in 1998.

Based in Alta since 1998, Mortensen moves freely between classical and contemporary music, jazz, folk and crossover. He has worked closely with mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland, violinist Arvid Engegård and double bassist Knut Erik Sundquist on several acclaimed recordings; Veslemøy synsk, with Kielland, was nominated for a Grammy Award. His solo discography includes Grieg, Brahms, Debussy and Bach, and his 2023 album J.S. Bach: Partitas Nos. 1, 5 & 6 won critical acclaim.

He received the Robert Levin Memorial Prize in 2004 and the Nordlys Prize in 2013.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was born on 21 March 1685 in Eisenach into an extensive family of musicians. Orphaned by the age of ten, he was raised by his elder brother Johann Christoph in Ohrdruf before receiving a scholarship to the Michaelisschule in Lüneburg in 1700. His first appointment, in 1703, was as a court violinist to Duke Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar, but within months he became organist at the Neue Kirche in Arnstadt, composing his first significant organ works and, in 1705, travelling to Lübeck to study with Dietrich Buxtehude. In 1707 he became organist of St Blasius's Church in Mühlhausen and married his cousin Maria Barbara; the following year he entered the service of Duke Wilhelm Ernst in Weimar as court organist, rising to concertmaster in 1714 and building a reputation as an organ virtuoso. 

In 1717 Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen appointed him Hofkapellmeister, a productive period that yielded much of his instrumental output, including violin concertos and orchestral suites, though it was also marked by the death of his wife in 1720; he remarried the following year to Anna Magdalena Wilcke. In 1723 Bach was elected Thomaskantor in Leipzig, a post he held for the rest of his life, composing there his great vocal works, including the St John and St Matthew Passions and over two hundred cantatas, until his death on 28 July 1750.