|
The German harpsichordist, conductor, and Bach scholar, Alexander Grychtolik, studied harpsichord with Bernhard Klapprott at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar and with Frédérick Haas at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. At the same time, he studied architecture at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, where he earned his doctorate in the field of musical cultural heritage preservation. He completed a second doctorate in musicology, focusing on J.S. Bach's secular cantatas in fragmentary form, at the University of Music and Theater in Hamburg.
Together with his partner, Aleksandra Grychtolik, Alexander Grychtolik has become one of the most renowned harpsichord soloists and J.S. Bach specialists. He regularly performs at leading festivals, including the Bachfest Leipzig, Frankfurter Bachkonzerte, Festival Bach de Lausanne, Forum Alte Musik Zürich, Festival Europäische Kirchenmusik in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Kronberg Festival, Festival van Vlaanderen, the Internationales Bachfest Schaffhausen (Artist in Residence 2021), Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, and outside Europe in places such as Korea, Japan, and Canada.
In 2008, Alexander Grychtolik and Aleksandra Grychtolik founded the ensemble Deutsche Hofmusik, with whom he released internationally acclaimed world-premiere recordings of reconstructed vocal works by J.S. Bach on Sony/DHM, nominated for the German Record Critics’ Award and included in Deutsche Grammophon’s complete J.S. Bach recording series (Bach 333).
His J.S. Bach reconstructions include, among others, the Köthen Birthday Cantatas BWV 36a=36.2 and BWV 66a=66.1, the Shepherds’ Cantata BWV 249a=249.1, as well as the Coronation Cantata BWV 205a=205.2, the soprano solo cantata O angenehme Melodei BWV 210a-210.1, as well as the Wedding or Tribute Cantata BWV 216=216.1/BWV 216a=216.2; additionally the Köthener Trauermusik, BWV 244a=1143, published by Edition Peters, and the St. Mark Passion in its 1731 and 1744 version (also published by Edition Peters). As an artistic experiment, he presented in 2023 an attempt to reconstruct and complete the Passion Oratorio BWV Anh 169 (BWV³ p. 718), which J.S. Bach may have planned to perform.
As a researcher, Alexander Grychtolik studies, among other things, J.S. Bach's secular cantatas, passion music, and his former performance venues in Weimar, Köthen, Weißenfels, and Leipzig, as well as issues related to parody and performance practice, which are documented in publications such as the Bach-Jahrbuch. His teaching and guest lectures have taken him to institutions such as the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar, where he is currently an honorary professor, as well as the University of Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt am Main and the Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo. He was a fellow of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation and is currently a visiting researcher at Sacred Heart University in Tokyo. |
