One of the most enigmatic among the great musicians of our time is without any doubt pianist and composer Rolf Dach. The artist living totally withdrawn is meanwhile considered by experts as the most eminent pianist in the second half of the 20th century. Rolf Dach’s “incomprehensible virtuosity” (FAZ), his “dismaying musicality” (New York Times) and the “electrifying impact on his audience” (Le Figaro) are legendary. Unfortunately, this great artist takes fright at the light of the public to an extent which makes it nearly impossible for his audience to hear him in concert or at least on recorded media.
The last public appearance enthusiastically celebrated prior to the event (”concert of a millenium” (Freie Presse)) was supposed to have taken place at Vienna in 2001. Later investigations on this event didn’t result in something useable, since the concert was obviously cancelled at the last minute.
Rolf Dach, who is - according to rumors - capable of bilocation, was at the same time witnessed to have appeared in the northwest of Lisbon.
Also, the intended performance of the complete keyboard works by J.S. Bach at the Salle Pleyel, Paris, in 1961 had to be cancelled due to a disastrous hellfire - a traumatic experience for Dach, which made him retreat from the concert scene for a great many years.
Awaiting publication is a complete recording of the Beethoven Sonatas dating from the early 1970’s. Reviewers who heard briefest examples confirmed that it was a great musical achievement of epochal importance. It’s rumored also, that since 1969 , Dach has been recording the 665 fugue-collection “cathartisch-apocalyptische Ton-Malerey” by the forgotten Bach contemporary Johann Fürchtegott Ramler, a teacher of Haydn.
The only certainty is that the pianist is living in a widely cordoned off and inaccessible area of the Campagne . A few kilometres from his nearly windowless house (Dach is suffering from a rare allergy to electromagnetic radiation) is a constant hubble of press and music lovers. Earwitnesses report “piano playing early in the morning at a great distance”. Experts claim to identify the 4 concertos by Rachmaninoff, a series which Dach allegedly has performed at New York in 1977. The TV-recording of CBS has been irreversibly damaged due to a faulty editing table.

Rolf Dach, whose musical insights and expressiveness are so immense, that in the case of unsoftened realisation “for myself and the audience the result would have serious repercussions” is therefore treated with a carefully developed customized medication (”paraventriclic perceptive diffusives”) to reduce stage presence, interpretative power and sound differentiation towards a human scale. Because the pianist is responding promisingly well to treatment, 69 year old Dach has left his refuge to perform in short time in the UK the complete etudes by Chopin and Bach’s Goldbergvariations. A date – 20.01.2009- seems to materialize but at the same time there are reports of a solorecital in Klagenfurt for that day.
At the same time Dach is one of the most successful and sought after teachers worldwide. Meanwhile many of Dach’s students are themselves successful pianists, conductors and musicians,for example Ithzhak Weissbein,who died so tragically early,or the unexplicably totally unknown Martha Dax or legendary Tamas Goulsh,who is considered a true master of his profession due to his “77 transzendental orgies’’ for piano. As a critic Dach superseded all previous conceptions about reviewing: between 1958 and 2004 he published over 3000 reviews worldwide under different pseudonyms. Legendary were his vivious attacks on all contemporary pianists in a weekly column in the NY Times. Week by week Dach tore apart every pianist who came too close with to his instrument in his own analytical brilliance and lucidity. His worldly and encyclopaedic education-he had studied the eminent subject of Germanistik-served as a model for many after him, particularly leading German reviewers (Bruchman,Keiser,Bruck,Semmelrogge).
Dach is considered one of the most prolific opera composers of our time. The premieres of his three main works - “Das Schrankmittel” (”the wardrobe means” 1989),”Wall” (1962/64), and “Nero” (1970) - were sold out months in advance before, but due to most severe creative crisis, Dach was forced to withdraw every single premiere.
Solely regarding his early sociocritical chamber opera “Der steyrische Hirt” (”the styrian heardsman” 1944, rev. 1947), there is a certain evidence for a few private performances from 1957 on.

Also of the highest calibre is Dach’s standard work “acausal pianism”, written in 1969 and impressively summarizing his didactic-aesthetical positions. The work only exists in a single handwritten and signed copy, formerly in possession of Dach’s sister Emily. In 1994 at an auction at Sotheby’s, this manuscript was bought by an anonymous bidder. A publication was prevented after the first publishing house went bankrupt due to the exceptionally high production costs - the foreword alone consists of 6 large scale volumes. In the future it is intended to publish central theses from the work on this site, which “will make you forget all pianistic theories up to date” (the piano lesson, 7/2001).
For the future, it can only be hoped that the art of Rolf Dach will finally make its way into the broader public. Global investors are preparing a foundation for that purpose, international Dach-festivals are planned in Vienna and London, for the first time a film-portrait is becoming a possibility.
The admirers of the artist can get comprehensive information, please subscribe to the Rolf-Dach-Newsletter or visit the Website of the “Internationale Rolf Dach Gesellschaft”