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J.S. BACH  GOLDBERG VARIATIONS   -   REVIEWS

 
 Classical DVD + cd Reviews 
MusicWeb-International, October 2007   (Dominy Clements)
  

With two different recordings of the wonderful Goldberg Variations played by Andrea Bacchetti in this package, this is something about which all Bach and piano fans can get a little excited.... Andrea Bacchetti is a serious performer in this music, and while you can sense the joy and inspiration he finds in Bach, the exuberance is somehow always measured and calculated, his approach lyrical rather than technically extrovert - his legato is truly marvellous. A cool customer, ther is not a bottle of water or even a cloth for brow mopping in sight on the DVD. He chooses a heavily dotted rhythm in variation 20, which while valid I still find a little odd, and there are some moments where, arguably, his approach to ornamentation leans a little too heavily on the rhythmic cohesion of some passages. While his attention to detail and intensity never lets up, Bacchetti does show he has a human side, and there are a very few places where the fingers don't quite behave with mechanical perfection ...
   
 

... Sans abandonner sa fascination pour l'ornamentation chez Bach, Bacchetti aborde les Goldberg avec un toucher nettement plus fin, qui lui permet de créer une dynamique à l'interieur des phrases, une dynamique qui n'a rien de factice ou de la plaqué mais qui appartient à la respiration même de la musique ... Ce qui est audible (et visible dans ce DVD bien réalisé) c'est la profonde immersion du pianiste dans l'univers de Bach et des Goldberg. Pour le coup, on a l'impression qu'il n'a joué que cela toute sa vie et peut poser un regard libre et varié au goût du jour sur chaque recoin de phrase. ...
   
 

... his physical address of the keyboard reminds me of a recently seen DVD of Boris Berezovsky. His technique is exceedingly clean in spite of the fact that he plays with a super-romantic approach with liberal use of the sustaining pedal. Bach's polyphony is cristal clear. ... Technically young Andrea Bacchetti is above criticism. If I had to say whose technique his most reminds me of, I'd say Murray Perahia, high praise indeed. ...
   
 

... Auch wenn man nicht einverstanden ist, dass Andrea Bacchetti sehr häufig das Pedal verswendet, so ist sein Stil doch geshmeidig, kantabel in der Aria, swingend und fließend in den Allegro-Passagen und subtil in der Wahl extemporaler Ornamentik. Andrea Bacchetti hat für sich die Poesie in den "Goldberg Variationen" entdeckt, deren Rhythmen in diesem Film visuell reflektiert werden.
   
 

Muy interesante edición la presente, ya que ofrece dos interpretationes de esta magna obra emenadas dal mismo artista. Bacchetti tiene la obra dominada y meditada, es indudable. ... En esta interpretación - seria, equilibrada y respectuosa con Bach - se atisba ya la propensión cantabile del italiano, adornando con trinos aquí y allá, y aplicando a su interpretación una metódica muy bien maturada. ... En la que hace en la enero de este mismo año, 2007, en Savona, Bacchetti está más lanzado, mas mediterráneo, aunque sin hacer transgresiones.
Asi pues, buenas versiones y un experimento interesante y muy agradable.
   
 

... Su versión se escucha con mayor placer ... afronte las variaciones de un modo que revela, sin embargo, un excelente conocimento de la obra ... aunque su enfoque tiende siempre a la introversión ...
   
 

... der Variationen unvermindert ist. Die Aria erzält tatsächlich eine Geschichte, hat einen eigenen Atem. Die Variationen sind in Tempo und Dynamik aufeinander abgestimmter. Manche werden kraft- und schwungvoll vorgetragen. ... .
   
 

... Arthaus gives us here two performances of Bach's Goldberg Varations, recorded in different locations by the greatly gifted Andrea Bacchetti, of whom we have heard little in UK. On the DVD he introduces the Goldberg and his own interpretation of them with manic zest, spaking at a rate you woldn't have thought possible, and getting ever faster.
It may be best not watch this first, for both performances are on the highest level, and it would be a great loss for any Bach-lover not to listen to them. The CD takes only 77 minutes - actually a very long time compared to the normally lenght of an hour or so. The DVD, recorded earlier, takes 97 minutes, making Bacchetti a Celibidache of the keyboard.
He uses a very soft-toned grand piano in each case, and avails himself of its full dynamic range, using both pedals freely. As he says, he likes to play the Goldbergs slowly, and when he isn't slow he still isn't fast.
By the end of the DVD, I wished thet he had allowed the final four variations to gather monumentum as well as weight. Yet the overall impact of both these performances - for me, the CD is preferable - is so majestic and profound that it would be churlish to deny it greatness. In fact the recital is revelatory.
   
 

... It's a meticulous, refined account, the warm yet articulate sound Bacchetti achieves on his Fazioli being absolutely at one with the music in hand. I particulary enjoyed his Shiff-like sense of fantasy, more Italian whimsy than Germanic awestruck reverence. Yet for all the excellence of this 2006 DVD version, the bonus CD is so vitally communicative as to make the earlier version feel almost inflexible by comparison ...
   
 

... None of this, homever, should be taken as a critique of Bacchetti's actual reading of Bach's monumental score, witch, it turns out, is quite thoughtfully, as opposed to mystically, communicated, and witch is delivered witch conviction and executed with faultless technical precision. I found it to be a highly convincing and engaging performance, on a par with the best piano versions out there, among which I count Angela Hewitt's and András Schiff's. ...
   

Dans les Variations Goldberg, le jeu du pianiste italien Andrea Bacchetti est intériorisé, réflexif, peu contrasté. Il n'y a pas de place ici pour l'ivresse digitale. Dominent la clarté, la raison et la rigueur, qui n'est pas forcément rigorisme. ...
   

... I note a fantastic clarity in both performances that allows every detail to shine throught. Bacchetti is very free with his ornamentation and varies it considerably on each repeated section. Always tasteful and historically accurate, it pushes the limit on just how much is necessary or desiderable. He uses the pedal and dynamic shading in almost every phrase. Two excellent, but different performances. I enjoyed his ornamentations and felt a certain kinship with his more romantic interpretation. ...
   

... la interpretación se realiza desde una perspectiva netamente pianística ... estilísticamente Bacchetti parece aspirar a una intemporalidad del mensaje bachiano que yanos fue apuntada por Gould en sus dos grabaciones en estudio de la obra ... un Bach gouldiano, picado y enfermizamente polifónico, pero tampoco es un Bach romántico aunque, repetimos una vez más, su sonido es brillantemente pianistico. Muy libre en el plano expressivo, esta interpretación es de una personalidad innegable y merece escucharse con atención. ...
   

... Andrea Bacchetti presents Bach's Goldberg Variations in a sensitively photographed and beautifully engineered DVD performance. ... While Bacchetti can do detached and dry-point articulation to Gouldian specifications, he's more about singing lines and warm sonorities. ...
   
 

... this exceptional release contains not one but two performances of the complete Goldberg Variations ... The tempi in each performance are, on the whole, exceptionally leisurely, not to say slow; the treatment supremely, sometimes ravishingly pianistic, and the overall effect almost hypnotic. Gould would have disparaged it all as sounding like a Chopin nocturne. Not for the first time, he would have been wrong, not least because Gould didn't understand Chopin, let alone his nocturnes. Yes, the sustaining pedal is much in evidence, but always, and appropriately, for colouration, never as a substitute for finger legato, which Bacchetti conspicuously commands. There is not an unbeautiful note from start to finish. ... Bacchetti's style is unconventional but never iconoclastic, as Gould often was. It marries a profond musical instinct with a keen and well-informed intellect, and an approach to the instrument (in this case a superb Fazioli) which makes many of his colleagues seem like crude beginners. ... He may thus never have the career he so richly deserves, but deserve it hemost emphatically does.
   

... Oportunidad de conocer y contemplar las virtudes de la digitación de Bacchetti, la clarísima articulación, el enorme dominio técnico ... y también oportunidad de apreciar con la vista la finura de la escritura bachiana, elegantemente compleja, exigente y ordenada, en ese lúcido misterio en el que la pulcra escritura y la perfección formal devienen belleza intensa y radiante, mágicamente sencilla. ... El instrumento elegido, un Fazioli, tiene un sonido bellísimo, grave y cálido, que fácilmente envuelve y seduce al oyente-espectador. Bacchetti por su parte se muestra ágil y brillante, lleno de musicalidad, capaz de un exquisito refinamiento, luminoso, flexibile y expresivo. ...