Bach: Goldberg Variations
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Brand: DINNERSTEIN,SIMONEComposer: J.S. Bach
Performer: Simone Dinnerstein
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-08-28
Music Label: Telarc
Soundtracks:
- Aria
- Variation 1
- Variation 2
- Variation 3 - Canone all'Unisono
- Variation 4
- Variation 5
- Variation 6 - Canone alla Seconda
- Variation 7
- Variation 8
- Variation 9 - Canone alla Terza
- Variation 10 - Fughetta
- Variation 11
- Variation 12 - Canone alla Quarta
- Variation 13
- Variation 14
- Variation 15
- Variation 16 - Canone alla Quinta
- Variation 17
- Variation 18 - Canone alla Sesta
- Variation 19
- Variation 20
- Variation 21 - Canone alla Settima
- Variation 22
- Variation 23
- Variation 24 - Canone all'Ottava
- Variation 25
- Variation 26
- Variation 27 - Canone alla Nona
- Variation 28
- Variation 29
- Variation 30 - Quodilbet
- Aria
Music reviews of Bach: Goldberg Variations
Music Review: The old and the new come together - at last!
Rating: 5 Stars
Simone Dinnerstein's disc of the Goldberg Variations is currently the 12th addition to my "accumulation" on CD of that work, ranging from cembalo versions by such distinguished performers as Koopman, Hantai, Leonhardt and Jarrett to piano versions by Perahia, Feltsman and Hewitt. Since 13 is supposed to be an unlucky number it may be the last - for a while, at least - and as such I have to say: what a way to end that particular part of my Bach collection!
Dinnerstein's interpretation is at the same time technically flawless and - what is more - emotionally all-encompassing to a degree I can barely remember having encountered before in more than 25 years as an aficionado of classical music. It will be a cold and snowy day in Hell before I give up my disc of Gould's 1982 recording, but while that interpretation sets a standard of its own I always felt a slightly more romantic aproach to this timeless piece might do wonders; and how happy I am to at last find the pianist to provide the perfect balanced example. In many reviews Dinnerstein's playing is primarily compared to Perahia, whom - as a Mozart performer par excelence - I percieve as more classicistic (i.e. light-footed, elegant) to the touch. To my ear there is a clearer line to Dinnerstein's late great compatriot Rosalyn Tureck (1913-2003), who in her best live performances achieved an unequalled meditative quality in the slower variations. Like Tureck Dinnerstein also prefers to play all of the repetitions, and while this practice makes the variations a very long piece indeed, it will work wonders when you succeed in turning every repeat into an elaboration, as is the case with this recording. Though the Aria da Capo is technically supposed to be played more or less exactly like the opening Aria, this way of doing things always leaves me unsatisfied (shame on you Andr?s Schiff!). Something should have - must have - happened after all the bloody battles and tearful reconciliations of these 80 tumultuous minutes of music. Gould provides a very beautiful answer to this problem, but his transfigured, weary-of-life Aria da Capo allows for no interpretation but that this is unquestionably the end (maybe of all things), whereas Dinnerstein miraculously manages to make this solemn conclusion sound like a possible new beginning. To think that this cataclysmic work is still believed by some to have been composed as a lullaby for an insomniac count! Fiddlesticks, Mr. Johann Nikolaus Forkel - as Montgomery Burns would have said, and do stop rotating in your heaven J. S. Bach.
I could drone on for hours praising the merits of this outstanding recording, but fortunately others have already said most of what so richly deserves to be said. While I may not want to take my argument to the extreme of claiming this the only recording of this - the ultimate keyboard work of all times - you will ever need to hear, it certainly ticks more boxes on the score card than almost any other recording it has been my pleasure/duty to peruse. The level of introspection and athmospheric tension simply defies belief! Put this CD in your player and take in the 5 minutes 40 seconds of the first Aria; if you are not hooked by then you have the least curruptible personality in existence. Run for Pope!
More than warmly recommended, needless to say.
Description of Bach: Goldberg Variations
Dinnerstein's Goldberg Variations was recorded in the neoclassic auditorium of the Academy of Arts and Letters in New York in March 2005. The piano she plays, a 1903 Hamburg Steinway model D concert grand, was originally owned by the town council of Hull, in Northeast England. During World War II, Hull was extensively bombed and the town hall in which the piano was housed was severely damaged. The piano, however, survived intact and was used in a series of concerts after the war to restore Hull's spirit. In 2002, it was restored by Klavierhaus in New York City, in time to be used at the re-opening of the World Trade Center's Winter Garden, playing the same role as it had in Hull over fifty years earlier.This is destined to be one of the best-remembered and significant classical releases of 2007. Simone (pronounced "See-mo-nuh") Dinnerstein has recently been attracting lots of media attention, from Oprah's magazine to The New York Times. Within a classical-music circuit increasingly unwilling to take artistic risks, hers has been the rare success story. The 30-something pianist (a former student of Peter Serkin), backing herself, wowed critics with some notable concerts and eventually secured the support of a major label to release a self-produced recording Dinnerstein had made in March 2005. This Telarc account of the Goldberg Variations thus marks her solo debut CD (following some earlier collaborations with cellist Zuill Bailey on the Delos label). For once, the publicity is trying to keep up with the musical achievement--rather than the other way around.
Dinnerstein's seriousness of purpose is immediately obvious from her choice of the Bach masterpiece to make her mark. With the specter of Glenn Gould's own epoch-making 1955 debut playing the same work-not to mention a vast catalog of competing interpretations-Dinnerstein is nothing if not bold. But what's really extraordinary here is the liberating sense she conveys of its not having all been said before-without resorting to tiresome idiosyncrasies to stand apart from the crowd. Her remarkably deliberate way with the opening aria is unusual, to be sure. But it establishes the stakes for what will follow, where Dinnerstein's thoughtfulness and spectacular clarity seem to discover new facets at every turn. Her pianism embraces a prismatic array of touches, whether the feathery lightness of Variation 5, the burbling rhythms of Variation 14, or the tragic weight of the "black pearl" Variation 25. The cumulative effect is exhilarating, intensely moving, and an affirmation of the Goldbergs' infinite variety. --Thomas May
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