Dan Tepfer brings something unexpected to “Bastille Day”: a lineage of Baroque elegance fused with contemporary improvisational boldness. His piano voice interlaces with Magos Herrera’s lyrical finesse and Hamilton Berry’s cello warmth in a way that feels both ancient and alive.
Recorded at New York’s legendary Power Station in May 2022 and produced by Emilio D. Miler and John Finbury, “Bastille Day” is a delicate tapestry of sound. Tepfer’s piano doesn’t merely accompany—it breathes a contrapuntal spirit reminiscent of Bach, weaving independent lines that converse with Herrera and Berry in the service of a nuanced musical narrative.
Magos Herrera’s vocals soar like poetic breath, while Hamilton Berry’s cello grounds the piece in warmth and introspection. But Tepfer’s touch—those arpeggiated threads, those counterpoints—turns the trio into a dialog, as though Bach’s timeless craft is being reinterpreted through contemporary imagination.
His roots in Bach’s Goldberg Variations project—where he alternated each of Bach’s 30 variations with his own improvisations—offer clues to that contrapuntal sensibility. Tepfer develops harmonic dialogues that echo the architecture of Baroque form, even as he bends them toward modern expression.
In “Bastille Day,” that contrapuntal grammar becomes a language with its own emotional grammar: unhurried phrases that shift mood, gentle tension in overlapping voices, and a sense that every melodic gesture is part of a larger, unfolding story. It’s music that rewards the listener not just with its beauty, but with its depth.