BaL 18.02.12 - Bach Goldberg Variations

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  • pastoralguy
    Full Member
    • Nov 2010
    • 7763

    Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
    I was going to write that I hope you move to a better place soon, pasto - but that doesn't sound at all like what I meant! I hope the sentiments come from behind the clumsy words

    Chen Pi-Hhsien is a superb artist - one of the great but largely unsung pianists: I didn't know she'd recorded the Goldbergs

    I was interested the other day when you posted your reactions to the Jeremy Denk recording a week or so ago. This was a disc that was reviewed on CD Review when it was first released: I was in the car headed for the local supermarket, and I thought "Ah - who needs another piano recording of the Goldbergs?" A few bars into one of the excerpts, and I was hooked, and for the remainder of the "article", I was sitting in my car in the supermarket car park, completely captivated by how Denk transformed the work into piano terms. I had to buy the disc, and I have listened to it many, many times in the years since. By contrast, it was Ms Hewitt's recording that was one of the many that made me think that I would never need another piano recording of the work.

    Remarkable how a work as huge as this "adapts" itself to so many different "treatments" and readings, each appealing to different audiences to console, inspire, and enliven our moods as we need them.

    Best Wishes.
    Many thanks, ferney. Just work crap! Who knows, maybe the next 17 years will be better!

    I need to listen to the Denk cd again although I LOVED the DVD. Extremely informative and well presented.

    A small 'confession'. In 1988, I got a job teaching in a school in Perthshire and the day before I left, I bought the Pinnock Harpsichord from a second hand cd shop next to the Queen's Hall here in Edinburgh. However, every time I played it, something bad would happen until I felt that cd was jinxed! I looked for it just now but I can see no sign of it so it's possible I either traded it in or I gave it away.

    Comment

    • vinteuil
      Full Member
      • Nov 2010
      • 12844

      Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post

      Remarkable how a work as huge as this "adapts" itself to so many different "treatments" and readings, each appealing to different audiences to console, inspire, and enliven our moods as we need them.
      ... coincidentally, a sentence I was reading just before looking at your post -

      "The history of ideas shows that, once removed from its original socio-historical context, and read as the vehicle of a universal message, a work exerts its greatest influence not through the mechanical repetition or the exact reflection of its ideas, but through the ambiguities, misconceptions, and anachronisms which find their way into its interpretation."

      [Elisabeth Labrousse, 'Bayle' (OUP Past Masters)]

      .

      Comment

      • Barbirollians
        Full Member
        • Nov 2010
        • 11706

        Originally posted by Barbirollians View Post
        I have the Perahia , 1981 Gould and the BBC Music Magazine Freddy Kempf recordings . Enough for me with Rousset on the harpsichord as well .
        Still very happy with these four .

        Comment

        • teamsaint
          Full Member
          • Nov 2010
          • 25210

          Originally posted by vinteuil View Post
          ... coincidentally, a sentence I was reading just before looking at your post -

          "The history of ideas shows that, once removed from its original socio-historical context, and read as the vehicle of a universal message, a work exerts its greatest influence not through the mechanical repetition or the exact reflection of its ideas, but through the ambiguities, misconceptions, and anachronisms which find their way into its interpretation."

          [Elisabeth Labrousse, 'Bayle' (OUP Past Masters)]

          .
          There is a great discussion to be had starting from this thought.......
          I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.

          I am not a number, I am a free man.

          Comment

          • BBMmk2
            Late Member
            • Nov 2010
            • 20908

            I do have a liking for Richard Egarr's recording. I could listen to that forever and a day!
            Don’t cry for me
            I go where music was born

            J S Bach 1685-1750

            Comment

            • pastoralguy
              Full Member
              • Nov 2010
              • 7763

              Originally posted by pastoralguy View Post
              I've ordered two new ones. The most recent Hewitt version and a Naxos disc by a pianist called Chen Pi-hsien, (30p from musicmagpie courtesy of Amazon), which gets good reviews in that particular boutique.

              I wondered if there was any value in asking Mrs. PG to play them back to back but not telling me which is which. Mind you, two Goldberg's is an extremely demanding listen!

              Now to read the posts on this thread.
              Well, due to wet afternoon in Edinburgh, I'm going to listen to both these CDs which arrived very quickly after ordering them.

              Version 1 is on now which I suspect is the Pi-hsien recording on Naxos. Very good playing indeed.

              Comment

              • pastoralguy
                Full Member
                • Nov 2010
                • 7763

                Alas, the Pi-hsien had a big finger smudge which caused it to mis-track, thus giving the game away! A quick run through the cd cleaning/repairing device soon fixed it.

                This is lovely playing, well worth the 30p I paid for it although I now see it's available for 5p!

                Comment

                • pastoralguy
                  Full Member
                  • Nov 2010
                  • 7763

                  Now listening to the 2015 Angela Hewitt recording of The Goldbergs.

                  Good though the Pi-Hsiang is, Hewitt is on a different level.

                  Comment

                  • ardcarp
                    Late member
                    • Nov 2010
                    • 11102

                    Hewitt 1999 is still my best ever. Phrasing so subtle.

                    Comment

                    • Beresford
                      Full Member
                      • Apr 2012
                      • 555

                      Tonight (Friday) at 2030 BST a concert performance of the Goldbergs by Béatrice Rana on France Musique (preceded by CPE Bach, Ensemble Café Zimmermann led by Céline Frisch, who plays the Goldbergs on harpsichord on CD, but not in this concert - my favourite).
                      https://www.francemusique.fr/programmes?

                      Comment

                      • pastoralguy
                        Full Member
                        • Nov 2010
                        • 7763

                        Originally posted by Beresford View Post
                        Tonight (Friday) at 2030 BST a concert performance of the Goldbergs by Béatrice Rana on France Musique (preceded by CPE Bach, Ensemble Café Zimmermann led by Céline Frisch, who plays the Goldbergs on harpsichord on CD, but not in this concert - my favourite).
                        https://www.francemusique.fr/programmes?

                        Many thanks for that. I'll try to tune in. I have the wonderful Ms. Rana's cd of the Goldbergs but it would be great to hear a live performance.

                        Comment

                        • pastoralguy
                          Full Member
                          • Nov 2010
                          • 7763

                          Does anyone know if Alfred Brendel recorded the 'Goldberg Variations?'

                          I'm listening to his 'Italian Concerto' cd and it occurred to me that if he didn't then he probably should have!

                          Comment

                          • Richard Tarleton

                            No. He doesn't mention playing them in his essays or interviews, though he touches briefly on them while writing about other sets of variations (chiefly the Diabelli, but also variations by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Liszt and Brahms). He contrasts variation sets in which the character of the theme remains decisive and "gives a signal that determines the psychological course of the entire work", with the Goldberg "whose pensive aria is followed by a succession of diverse character pictures..."....

                            Comment

                            • pastoralguy
                              Full Member
                              • Nov 2010
                              • 7763

                              I'm currently listening to a cd I picked up in a BHF shop for 99p this morning.

                              Bach. Goldberg Variations

                              Maria Tipo, pianoforte. Recorded 1986. HMV Classics.

                              Very interesting playing if, perhaps, a little indulgent. The famous 'Black Pearl' Variation is very 'rubatosised' (*). Nevertheless, beautiful playing.

                              (*) Not real word!

                              Comment

                              • pastoralguy
                                Full Member
                                • Nov 2010
                                • 7763

                                Originally posted by Richard Tarleton View Post
                                No. He doesn't mention playing them in his essays or interviews, though he touches briefly on them while writing about other sets of variations (chiefly the Diabelli, but also variations by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Liszt and Brahms). He contrasts variation sets in which the character of the theme remains decisive and "gives a signal that determines the psychological course of the entire work", with the Goldberg "whose pensive aria is followed by a succession of diverse character pictures..."....

                                Apologies for not thanking you for the reply, Richard.

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