| July 2006András Schiff
recorded quite a bit of Bach at the beginning of his affiliation with Decca nearly 25
years ago. His 1982 recording of the Goldberg Variations was the first installment
to reach me, and it was powerfully impressive without straining to be. While other
pianists had succeeded in rendering irrelevant the question of which keyboard instrument
can do justice to Bach’s works, Schiff seemed to demonstrate that Bach, in a rare
example of farsightedness, must have conceived this piece for the specific properties of
the modern piano. If we hear less in the way of interpretive "personality" than
we do in the famous recordings of this work by Glenn Gould, it might be said that we are
simply less aware of the interpreter and thus may feel more directly involved with Bach.
In any event, Schiff’s unfailing tastefulness is never
a trade-off for involvement or vitality, both of which are felt in communicative
abundance. As he takes repeats in both halves of every one of the variations, his
performance, at 62:22, fills the CD (released in Decca’s "The Originals"
series) without crowding it, and the warmth of the sonic focus that was such an appealing
factor on the original LP sides is well preserved here. The illuminating annotation by
Schiff’s mentor George Malcolm, a celebrated harpsichordist who made a compelling
argument for Bach-on-the-piano, is reprinted in full, and that’s another plus.
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Bach - Goldberg Variations
