Lars Vogt - Bach: Goldberg Variations (2015) [Hi-Res]

Many concepts have been applied to the playing of Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, on the piano rather than the harpsichord for which it was originally composed. There are readings that attempt to restrict the piano's dynamic ambit to keep it close to that of a harpsichord, those that go full-on Romantic, and monumental takes that recognize the sheer unprecedented scope of the work. Fewer, though, are those that recognize the original story of the work's origin, recounted by Bach's early biographer Forkel: a Russian ambassador in Saxony, named Kaiserling, had trouble sleeping and prevailed upon a young pianist named Goldberg to serenade him to the land of dreams with a harpsichord, asking Bach to compose something for these sessions. The tale has been widely disbelieved, but there is no reason to suppose that quiet, intimate Goldberg Variations are any less valid than an epic one. That's what's here from German pianist Lars Vogt, who manages the neat trick of delivering a truly pianistic interpretation without turning it into a Romantic one. He does so by keeping the volume low throughout and by reining in the temptation to make the big minor-key variations at the middle and end into anguished dissonant cries. Instead they are moderate in tempo and quietly dreamy, to delightful effect, and one might indeed imagine the insomniac Russian count drifting off to them. In general Vogt's treatment is straightforward, with nothing brought so far to the fore that it would interfere with the considerable contrapuntal detail that emerges naturally from the individual variations. With excellent engineering from Ondine, working in the Deutschlandfunk Chamber Music Studio in Cologne, this is a highly recommended tonic to grandiose Goldberg Variations played on whatever instruments. ~ James Manheim