Bach’s extraordinary music finds a compelling new voice on the electric guitar in this album by Danish guitarist Mikkel Ploug. Bringing together eight Bach pieces and a work written for him by Bent Sørensen, the recording invites both devoted Bach listeners and audiences beyond the classical world to discover its beauty.
Ploug performs on a fully hollow 1961 Gibson ES-330, whose P90 pickups offer exceptional clarity and directness. Its singing tone allows him to bring Bach’s intricate musical architecture into the intimate sound world he has cultivated through years of experimentation. That search took shape during the COVID lockdowns, when Ploug played Danish folk songs from his balcony for neighbours and an international online audience. Examining everything from strings and bridges to touch and technique, he sought to make the guitar sing more freely. The resulting album, Balcony Lullabies, became his most successful release.
His encounter with Bach grew from a close collaboration with Bent Sørensen, whose piano nocturnes he had painstakingly arranged for guitar. This collaboration subsequently produced Banner Head Fantasia, written for Ploug’s historic 1944 Gibson Banner Head acoustic guitar. In Bach, Ploug discovered what he calls “the musical building stones of the universe”: familiar sounds and connections brought together with astonishing precision and heartbreaking beauty.
These arrangements explore the electric guitar’s own expressive possibilities, giving each interwoven voice space to breathe. For Ploug, Bach’s craftsmanship serves an emotional purpose: every return to the music reveals something new. Personal, searching and deeply felt, this album opens a welcoming door to Bach, sharing Ploug’s conviction that this inexhaustible music belongs to everyone, whatever their musical background.
Danish guitarist and composer Mikkel Ploug combines jazz’s spontaneity with an exceptional sensitivity to melody, sound and form. Praised by DownBeat for his “extreme beauty,” while the British jazz publication Marlbank has called him “one of Europe’s most pioneering contemporary jazz guitarists” He has toured more than 25 countries and released 19 albums. His longstanding collaborators include saxophonist Mark Turner. His acclaimed solo album Balcony Lullabies was named Best Jazz Album of 2020 by Morning Star. A teacher at Zurich University of the Arts, Ploug now brings his distinctive electric guitar voice to Bach, opening this extraordinary music to new audiences with imagination and warmth.