Johann Forkel, Bach’s first biographer, tells us that the Goldberg Variations were written at the request of the keyboard prodigy Johann Goldberg who needed pieces to entertain his insomniac employer Count Keyserlingk, the Russian ambassador to the Saxon court. The opening Aria would have surely sent the Count into the arms of Morpheus as played by Nicholas Angelich at a somnolent 5'20". Compare that with Glenn Gould’s “autumnal” 1981 recording (3'05") and Murray Perahia, who takes 3'58" within an overall timing of 73'29" (Angelich occupies a single disc at 79'58").

That said, the Aria is Angelich’s only serious misjudgement in this otherwise beautifully poised and cohesively structured account. In Var 7, for instance, played on many recordings like a siciliana, Angelich follows the tempo di giga marking found in the Handexemplar (Bach’s copy found only in 1974); he offers a skittish Var 17 rather than the slow deliberation of Tureck, and an unindulgent view of the Var 25, the “black pearl” variation. The toccata movements, played with joyous abandon and an exemplary light touch, are a delight (try Var 14, “one of the giddiest bits of neo-Scarlatti-ism imaginable”, according to Gould).

This, in short, is a distinguished Goldberg, one to live with though not superior to Perahia’s, the more emotionally engaging Andrea Bacchetti’s, nor Tal and Groethuysen’s two-piano version (arr Rheinberger and Reger) in which the final bar of the Quodlibet slips seamlessly back into the Aria da capo with a magical inevitability.