Johann Sebastian Bach: Goldberg Variations (CD plus score) - Rosalyn Tureck

Rosalyn Tureck whimsically referred to this sixth of her recorded Goldbergs as a "mature interpretation." Older, in this case, doesn't always mean wiser. She still clarifies and shapes Bach's intricate counterpoint like few pianists in history, but her ponderous tempos compromise the music's variety and cumulative impact. Interweaving right-hand canonic lines emerge from hermetically sealed isolation booths, rather than mesh in an effortless dance. On the other hand, ornamental touches emerge with new freshness and organic motion, as well as Tureck's subtly varied repeats--all observed save for the Aria Da Capo. What's more, PC users can access essays, pictures, and the full musical score from these discs. For a warmer, quicker, and more communicative Tureck Goldberg, though, stick with her 1994 recording on VAI. --Jed Distler Amazon.com

A Glorious Experience

I am old enough to remember the stir caused in musical circles by the release of Glenn Gould's 1955 "Goldbergs". I liked his performances then and I like them now.

Bach wrote only two works in the Chaconne or Passacaglia idiom. It often is claimed that the Goldberg Variations are similarly based but that is incorrect. True, the fundamental harmony is unchanging and the variations are based on this rather than on the melody which more usually is the case but the work is not a Passacaglia. Nor is it, as has been described, a "seemingly mechanical sequence of elaborations". One has to suppose that that particular reviewer had heard only mechanically sequential performances for there is absolutely nothing remotely mechanical about these variations - unlike many of the banal and predictable offerings from Handel and a few others. Bach's Goldbergs are the very pinnacle of development of the Variation as a musical form and, as with the "Vom Himmel hoch" variations for organ (also canonic), he has exploited the art to its limits. The only other set of variations to come close in such creativity is the Brahms Opus 24 and appearing well over a hundred years later.

The interpretations of Rosalyn Tureck, leaving aside such obvious differences as tempi etc., are not widely dissimilar to those of Gould and it is easy to see why the latter preferred her approach to that of others. In a sense, they have both arrived at much the same point but by very different routes; Gould through his highly individual genius, Tureck by profound scholarship.

After half a century of listening to Gould's offerings, I feel I have outgrown his exagerated mannerisms, become irritated by the sour notes from his over-regulated piano and find his humming tiresome. More recently, I have come to admire Rosalyn Tureck who demands a little effort on the part of the listener in order to appreciate what she is doing and why, but the effort is wonderfully rewarded. One may appreciate these works on an intellectual level - every third variation is a two-part canon at increasing intervals up to a canon at the ninth in the twenty-seventh variation - or just relax to quietly doze off as, hopefully, did the insomniac Count Keyserlingk for whom these variations were (indirectly) written in 1742.

Frankly, I think Rosalyn Tureck incomparable and if I had to be limited to only one of her Bach recordings, (could I survive such deprivation?) unquestionably, this would be it.

The "enhanced" Deutsche Grammophon recording is excellent. Indeed, I think it the best quality of all the recordings she made - we are fortunate that this should have been reserved for such a special performance of the Goldbergs. I recommend these (2) CDs with unbounded enthusiasm and quite without reservation.

If magic exists in recorded music, this is where it is to be found.
December 14, 2007

Lacks Soul

A bit harsh, but there are so many other wonderful Goldbergs out there it would be a sin to start with this one. I imprinted on the Gould interpretations (1955, 1981) so am perhaps partisan, but I've found wonderful humanity in other recordings, notably that of Igor Kipnis. I had read that Tureck's style had influenced Gould, so I had high expectations. They were dashed, however. Those poor people that say Bach is boring, monotonous, mechanical -- they've been forced to listen to 'interpretations' like this. I wish it were otherwise, but this sounds like a piano teacher. No clear artistic message comes through. It's technically refined, though slow in tempo. The overall impression is - no soul, no swing, no message. A Goldberg that fails the Turing test. April 23, 2007

Not Bach!

Whatever Ms. Tureck had in mind, it wasn't what Bach intended. She merely pounds out each variation as if it were an impromptu on its own, without attention to dance forms, without revealing counterpoint, without balancing inner voices, without rendering consonances "perfect" by preparing through the piquant dissonances and cross-relations that can scarcely be heard on modern piano. Please, go listen to Trevor Pinnock or Bob van Asperen perform the Goldbergs as they should and must be performed. October 12, 2006

The crowning achievement of Baroque keyboard music!

The theme for the Goldberg Variations came from a notebook which Bach complied and eventually presented to his wife by then, Anna Magdalena Bach, in 1725.
The Goldberg Variations stands as one of the greatest keyboard works of all times; it is the result of the incommensurable genius, febrile dedication, profound inspiration and displays a huge talent for idiomatic keyboard writing. Sir Donald Tovey said once: "Until Beethoven wrote the Waldstein Sonata, the Goldberg Variations were the most brilliant piece of sheer instrumental display extant. No other work or by Domenico Scarlatti, not even any concerto by Mozart or any earlier work of Beethoven could compare with it for instrumental balance."
Tureck has been called Bach' supreme priestess. And that is far to be an exaggerate nickname. Throughout her incandescent digitations, superb phrasing and devoted commitment with Bach you can realize this epithet is a true resume of an entire life consecrated to cultivate and divulge his eternal value and sublime meaning.
August 22, 2005

Thought-provoking

What an amazing recording !!!!!!!!! I was accustomed to fast recordings like Perahia and Hewitt. Then I listened to it. At the beggining I was surprissed by its slow tempi. But then I added what other listeners perhaps don`t have: patience. Patience to listen what a lifelong experience has to say about this paramount work. Only with patience you begin to discover the reasures Tureck offers to us. His phrasing. She has a way of adding the exact volume to each note, in such a way that she persuades us his interpretion is reference. It is coherent and absorbing. It is spontaneus in many times eg in the "slow" variations. She also adds nice ornaments within a section (not among repeats, I think). She is a master of details: she handles dinamics in such a way her tempi are NOT dragging. I love the piano sound she makes: a piano sound, but that makes us to remember a certain "harpsichord - like" character. Slow tempi? sometimes, sure. Other tempi are just a bit more moderate than usual. That lets us to unveil with great clarity Bach`s writing, like a radiography. Nothing sounds too slow, thanks to her dinamic control, her exemplary touching and her way of ornamentation, with discretion but with wisdom. In other words, in another hands, with these tempi the recording would be a failure. In hers, is a triumph. You only have to be patient. As she says, she does not play in order to show pyrotechnics, but to bring out a life experience. And she shows why she and Bach are like twin souls. Glenn Gould admired her recordings. The CD cover says something like this : "she makes us think her way of interpretation is THE way to play Bach: this is the hallmark of a great artist". I say again, although I love faster speeds than hers, when I listen to these Cds in the end I agree with that opinion. She is so persuasive ...
Not to mention the informatics: this CD has detailed commentaries in the CD ROM, and MIDI files that let you make your own version: you can add different instruments to the voices or just listen to a single voice. It is great fun !!! May 10, 2005

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