Majesty & Passion – J.S. Bach

The second solo album of Belarussian guitar virtuoso Victor Smolski. 

Somewhere in 2003, when Victor had just joined the legendary German metal band Rage, he used to run a club in Hamm, Germany, and used to invite underground metal bands to play shows there. Somehow my back then metal band happened to end up playing an instrumental show at Victor´s club, and, as fate wanted it, Victor happened to be there when we played. After our show was done, we had a little chat and Victor invited us to arrange and perform one song for his second solo album, which he just was preparing.

This album has a very special meaning for me, since it was a huge honour to get invited to perform on a production like this, especially considering the “state of my affairs” in 2003. Also it was really challenging to know that the concept of the album was to play music of J.S. Bach in a metal context and including a full blown symphony orchestra. And finally performing on the album is a really stellar and international cast of musicians, among many others musicians like Uli Jon Roth, Mike Terrana, or the German bass legend and one of my heroes, Frank Itt. 

I remember that we used to spend many hours in the rehearsal room for weeks, working on our arrangement of the “Concert for 2 violins and orchestra – Part 3”, and that it was lots of fun to do it. We then recorded drums, bass and two guitars in one day at Victor´s back then recording studio in Hamm, Germany. You can listen to the result in the video below.

If you like J.S. Bach, and guitar extravaganza, this album is one you really wanna listen to. For me personally, it helped me a lot back then, since it was the first professional production I was involved in and first worldwide release I was a part of, so it opened many doors in the following years. And it also lead to Victor inviting me to join his new band Almanac many years later, in 2015.

Victor Smolski webpage

Recording Line-Up for “Concert for 2 violins”: Victor Smolski – guitars – Bernd Aufermann – guitars – Alex Beyrodt – guitars – Adrian Weiss – guitars – Mischa Blum – guitars – Armin Alic – bass – Sabir Salkic – drums – Inspector Symphony Orchestra – conducted by Andrey Zybrich 

Equipment used:

Music Man Stingray 5 bass – straight into console