Album

Among recordings of Bach's monumental Goldberg Variations on the piano, András Schiff's 1982 set is justly famous. Unlike so many discs that have been issued in tired series designated "legendary recordings" or some other such term, this one fully lives up to the billing with its incredible delineation of Bach's contrapuntal lines. You hear every note, every hidden piece of the inner clockwork of each variation. Sample track 15 (variation 14), with its trills erupting sharply from each line like spring flowers blooming with freakishly rapid intensity—nobody else has ever given this variation such a glittering quality. Even as Schiff uses the full resources of the piano, with lots of pedal and thoroughly unidiomatic crescendos, he articulates every note Bach wrote. Schiff sets himself technical challenges and then surmounts them. Beginning with the opening Aria he sets a blistering pace—one that may seem too fast, especially in the slow variations, to those raised on Glenn Gould's dreamy readings. But listen to the high-wire act Schiff performs in the canonic variation 21 (track 22). The intensity is ramped up by the fact that Schiff often barely pauses between variations; one idea follows another, from both Bach and Schiff, with breakneck speed.

Yet sometimes he does pause. This brings the listener to another aspect of Schiff's bravura performance. Even as he seems, unlike Gould, to shun the interposition of a performer's ego between the listener and the work, he is actually superimposing a new grouping of the variations upon Bach's own. The nine canons (one at each interval from a unison to a ninth) interspersed among the variations seem naturally to conclude groups of three, just as fugues come after preludes in the Bachian scheme of things. In Schiff's reading, however, the canons often seem to serve an introductory function. Hear the pair of variations 9 and 10 (tracks 10 and 11), which Schiff makes into a unique two-part contrapuntal structure, bearing down in the fughetta, variation 10, and constantly raising the dynamic level as it proceeds to create a subsidiary climax. Afterwards comes a long pause. The concept sounds risky in the extreme, but Schiff has the discipline and logic to pull it off. Other pairs embedded in the larger structure of the work are just as unexpected, and just as brilliantly executed.

All in all, this is a performance of the Goldberg Variations that you have to hear to believe. Is Schiff, to some extent, building castles in the air and leaving Bach's music below? Perhaps—but what could be more beautiful than a castle in the air surveying the landscape of the Goldberg Variations? This performance certainly has the whirlwind, racing-ahead-of-you quality that the efforts of supremely talented young artists sometimes evince, but, equally certainly, it is one of the landmark classical recordings of the last quarter of the twentieth century.

© James Manheim, All Music Guide

CD 1
Johann Sebastian Bach Composer Goldberg Variations, BWV988 (Clavier-Übung IV) Work 1:12:00 Andras Schiff Piano
1	Aria	3:50			$0.99
2	Variation 1 (a 1 clav.)	1:54			$0.49
3	Variation 2 (a 1 clav.)	1:21			$0.49
4	Variation 3 (canone all'unisuono a 1 clav.)	2:02			$0.99
5	Variation 4 (a 1 clav.)	1:03			$0.49
6	Variation 5 (a 1 o vero 2 clav.)	1:27			$0.49
7	Variation 6 (canone alla seconda a 1 clav.)	1:17			$0.49
8	Variation 7 (a 1 o vero 2 clav., al tempo di giga)	1:42			$0.49
9	Variation 8 (a 2 clav.)	1:41			$0.49
10	Variation 9 (canone alla terza a 1 clav.)	1:21			$0.49
11	Variation 10 (fughetta a 1 clav.)	1:38			$0.49
12	Variation 11 (a 2 clav.)	1:58			$0.49
13	Variation 12 (canone alla quarta a 1 clav.)	1:59			$0.49
14	Variation 13 (a 2 clav.)	4:06			$0.99
15	Variation 14 (a 2 clav.)	2:00			$0.99
16	Variation 15 (canone alla quinta a 1 clav.: Andante)	4:01			$0.99
17	Variation 16 (ouverture a 1 clav.)	2:46			$0.99
18	Variation 17 (a 2 clav.)	1:59			$0.49
19	Variation 18 (canone alla sexta a 1 clav.)	1:26			$0.49
20	Variation 19 (a 1 clav.)	1:17			$0.49
21	Variation 20 (a 2 clav.)	1:48			$0.49
22	Variation 21 (canone alla settima a 1 clav.)	2:14			$0.99
23	Variation 22 (a 1 clav. alla breve)	1:50			$0.49
24	Variation 23 (a 2 clav.)	2:08			$0.99
25	Variation 24 (canone all'ottava a 1 clav.)	2:17			$0.99
26	Variation 25 (a 2 clav.: Adagio)	6:58			$0.99
27	Variation 26 (a 2 clav.)	2:05			$0.99
28	Variation 27 (canone alla nona a 2 clav.)	1:44			$0.49
29	Variation 28 (a 2 clav.)	2:40			$0.99
30	Variation 29 (a 1 o vero 2 clav.)	1:53			$0.49
31	Variation 30 (quodlibet a 1 clav.)	1:44			$0.49
32	Aria da capo	3:51			$0.99