For me, exploring early music is a seamless experience where interpretation, improvisation and composition come together to make up the creative process." That is how harpsichordist Alexander Ferdinand Grychtolik sums up his artistic vision. His concert performances are dedicated to the revival of the art of improvisation by Johann Sebastian Bach and his contemporaries, "also to further the understanding of what we call period music."

With this goal in mind, the Berlin harpsichord player – who studied with Bernhard Klapprott and Frédérick Haas – taught the practice of Baroque improvisation at the Liszt School of Music in Weimar, the first such position in a German conservatory, a winner of the school's Franz-Liszt prize, has also taught for instance at the Frankfurt music academy.

Alexander Grychtolik spent many years exploring the art of Baroque composition, an endeavour that culminated in a number of internationally renowned reconstructions of Bach vocal works, broadcast on German and other European public radio networks. Critics praised the reconstructions as a "delightful experience" (NMZ online 3/2010), as "conclusive" (Concerto 232/2010) and as a reconstruction reflecting an "intimate understanding of Bach's style" (Tibia 3/2008). The publisher Edition Peters also brought out a first reconstruction of the late version of Bach's St. Mark Passion from 1744, a work that was only authenticated in 2009.

Alexander Grychtolik founded the ensemble Mitteldeutsche Hofmusik in 2008, devoted to reviving the musical tradition of Baroque courts in Middle Germany, especially occasional works.