Bach - Goldberg Variations

Murray Perahia pf

Sony Classical SK89243 Buy now

(73’ · DDD) 

Murray Perahia’s Goldberg Variations aren’t just colourful, or virtuoso, or thorough in terms of repeats, but profoundly moving as well. Here you sense that what’s being played isn’t so much ‘Bach’ as an inevitable musical sequence with a life of its own, music where the themes, harmonies and contrapuntal strands await a mind strong enough to connect them.

Rosalyn Tureck was the first recorded Goldbergian to take the structural route, and her EMI/Philips set remains among the most cogent of older alternatives. And while Glenn Gould achieves formidable levels of concentration, his gargantuan personality does occasionally intrude. Perahia brooks neither distraction nor unwanted mannerism. Yes, there are fine-tipped details and prominent emphases, but the way themes are traced and followed through suggests a performance where the shape of a phrase is dictated mostly by its place in the larger scheme of things. Perahia never strikes a brittle note, yet his control and projection of rhythm are impeccable. He can trace the most exquisite cantabile, even while attending to salient counterpoint, and although clear voicing is a consistent attribute of his performance, so is flexibility. Like Hewitt, he surpasses himself. It’s just that in his case the act of surpassing takes him that little bit further. A wonderful CD.