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After the remarkable global success of his award-winning J.S. Bach recording, celebrated Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson returns with his third Deutsche Grammophon solo album, Debussy · Rameau. It juxtaposes pieces by two of the greatest French composers – both musical revolutionaries – exploring the contrasts and common ground between them. The innovative new recording follows Ólafsson’s extraordinary albums Philip Glass Piano Works and Johann Sebastian Bach. Ingenious works of remarkable diversity, Rameau’s keyboard works are rarely programmed or recorded on today’s modern instrument. Ólafsson discovered the great Baroque composer’s keyboard music during his student days in New York, courtesy of Emil Gilels’ Deutsche Grammophon recording of Le Rappel des oiseaux. This voyage of musical discovery introduced Ólafsson to the immaculate blend of “freedom and discipline” in Rameau’s piano writing, qualities which he also recognised in the piano music of Debussy. "This album is set up as a dialogue between two of my favourite composers, Jean-Philippe Rameau and Claude Debussy. I see them as musical brothers, kindred spirits even though one was 180 years older than the other. They were musicians of the future, who loved to stir things up. They were two uniquely gifted keyboard composers, two progressive and fiercely original musical thinkers who could capture incredibly evocative images through sound. I want to show Rameau as a futurist and I want to emphasise Debussy’s deep roots in the French baroque – and in Rameau’s music in particular. The idea is that the listener almost forgets who is who, while listening to the album.” - Víkingur Ólafsson