Which came first: the chicken or the egg? OK, how about this one: the music or the instrument? Musician Parker Ramsay saw no issue with one or the other when he prepared J.S. Bach’s Golberg Variations for harp.

Listen to the full episode to hear about the feat of preparing Bach’s landmark piece. Ramsay, who is also a skilled keyboardist, found unique advantages to transcribing the piece. And the Goldberg Variations are a piece of repertoire whose stature Ramsay hopes inspires harpists going forward.

Extras from outside the episode include a look at the harp as the family business.

And, the experience of attending King’s College Cambridge as a history student and organ scholar.

For his debut album Ramsay recorded the Bach in the chapel at King’s – best known in the USA as the home of an annual Christmas Eve service broadcast across the world.

A transcript of the episode is available for download at this link. CS_37_transcript