Wednesday 12 December 2012

Bach - Goldberg Variations [Perahia] 

Another listen to this wonderful disc [19th August 2010], and one of my favourite Pianists, however i always seem to have reservations about him, his Chopin Ballades for instance, i don't see what all the fuss is about, he concentrates very heavily on Bach, i'm not always in agreement with the repertoire he chooses, but his decision to do more Brahms is very welcome indeed, there's certainly a bit of 'staccato tendency' about Perahia, certain variations have a bent towards staccato, where a more legato approach would have worked so well, but there's invention aplenty here, and with a variety of thirty variations to play with, there's a mesmerising number of approaches that can be thrilling, and Perahia remains very much at the service of the spirit of Bach, lovely recoding sound to boot as well.

Murray Perahia is American, but living in London i believe, he's now 65, and he recorded this disc in 2000, the front cover photograph [by Ken Schles] is an inspired one, i take it it's photographed in his home, with his own piano, a shot where he's very much in shadow, not a silhouette, but not far off, a nice line of light down the right hand side, and a good use of the out of focus foreground piano, and especially the piano lid prop, behind in the background there's the open window, with washed out light, it's a great study in extremes.

On this listen i especially enjoyed Variations 5, 8, 10 & 14, and i would like to explain each one in more detail,

Variation 5 [10:28] - A fast variation, with a certain kind of stuttering main melody in the right hand, and a fast up and down the keyboard backing in the left hand, and it's the odd treble stabbing notes in the middle that are so affecting [0:30-0:32 & 0:46-0:48], just the lovely way that Bach uses legato and this stuttering staccato at the same time to wonderful effect, must be a demon for Perahia to play.
Variation 8 [15:04] - Another stuttering variation, this time the bass notes are staggered in such a way that it's as if Perahia is only playing every other note, and the mid keyboard warbling of the right hand is delicious [0:00-0:12], and hands change over in the melody / backing, the whole thing is just delightful, you don't want it to end, this could have been made into a piece of music all by itself.
Variation 10 [19:07] - A piece of ingenious trills, really it's a fugue, and listening to the many different voices in all areas of the keyboard, it's like a Barbershop Quartet in different voices, very majestic indeed.
Variation 14 [29:44] - The very opening notes sound like they come from Philip Glass's Metamorphosis, it's just something he would do, and they sound fantastic, again it's full of trills, bass and treble trills seem to play at will, there's staccato there, but the most fantastic things about this variation is the combination of trills and moving down the keyboard in the right hand [0:15-0:23], now that's terrific, that sounds so exciting, and when it comes back again it's just an immense wow [0:46-0:53], the left and right hands sound as if they're talking all over each other, but they making so much sense, like two twins that finish each others sentences, it's as if they're psychic, another two of these excellent trills also delight us [1:17-1:24 & 1:48-1:55], this time more central keyboard, a complex piece that sounds so obvious, but it took Bach to reveal it to us, probably my favourite variation on this listen.

Here's Murray Perahia playing the whole Goldberg variations on YouTube, the timings after each variation in yellow above, are where each variation lies in this video.