Customer Reviews

Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (1981 Recording) [Expanded Edition]

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Glenn Gould has developed legendary status for a reason. Perhaps I'm merely an uncouth fool who knows jazz must better than I know classical forms. The most important tool in listening to music is "big ears." GG heard Bach (and others) a different way. He had a conception - a unique vision. Musicians mostly really admire and respect Gould. He plays the Goldberg Variations with volcanic fire and a sense of counterpoint not heard before of since. "Top 100" critic Borat Bruno needs to remove the rod from his listening skills. Bach was a lot hipper than Borat.

beautiful performance and disc quality. and fascinating interview with gould about his previous recording compared to this one. highly recommended

I ordered this remastered Gould Goldbergs because I've been criticized for dismissing piano performances of Bach. When the disk arrived, I listened to it (on high end equipment) straight through. Well, it's as bad as I remembered, but it's not the piano that ruins the music; it's Gould's inept and self-indulgent technique. 1. He exaggerates ornaments in an arbitrary hammer-heavy manner which distorts the melodic line. The unity of Bach has to be rendered melodically rather than harmonically, and each line of polyphony needs to breathe with its own syntax independently. Gould appears to conceive of polyphony as a "top line" ornamented by counter-lines, which have no rhetoric of their own to express. 2. His rubato is excessive and arbitrary. His constant abandonment of the tempo for "romantic" effect also has the effect of disrupting "horizontal" melodic forms. 3. He growls along with his "top" line and contrary to a fan-club myth, he is NOT improvising a countermelody. He is simply singing out of tune. 4. He drops notes! In a vivid live performance, bad notes may pass, but on a studio recording numerous wrong notes are unacceptable. Indifference to the composer's MUSICAL intention is Gould's fatal flaw. 5. He shows no awareness of the historical dance structures that ground the successive variations. Once again, he ignores JS Bach in his adulation of G Gould.

Post-script: I've been taken to task for offering no alternative to Gould.

My first choices would all be harpsichordists, notabaly Bob van Asperen and Pieter-Jan Belder. I have reviewed performances by other pianists elsewhere; none of them are very convincing, but several of them are more pleasing to the ear than Gould's.