Like any commodity, the less you have, the more precious it becomes.
Since the music critic's job at the Star went the way of VHS, I've had little time to listen -- I mean listen, not hear -- to music, making the moments when I can have both particularly precious.
Koren-born Canadian pianist Minsoo Sohn's new recording of J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations has been one that I keep returning to and, with each listen since the CD arrived in late August, I come to appreciate some new facet of what he has done here.
There's been a mini rush of Goldberg recordings in the last half-decade and, each time I hear a new interpretation in concert or on disc, it comes with a fresh appreciation of Bach's craft, as well as the tremendous amount of thinking that the pianist has to do about how to make each of the 30 variations sound.
Some performers find an inner lyricism. Others treat the Variations as technical exercises broken by slower passages that allow the pianist to catch their breath during this 80-minute marathon.
The beauty in Sohn's performance comes from its underlying clear-headedness, blended with a very strong grasp of the playful nature of Baroque dance forms Bach inserts.
The music shimmers with playful light. Bach's contrapuntal textures are as clear and sparkling as a Swarowski store window. Sohn also refrains from imposing too much Romantic sweetness on the slow sections, making this a refreshing, enlightening and very welcome addition to my reference collection.
Check out the details as well as track samples in the Multimedia section of the Honens music competition website (Honens, as a gesture of confidence in its laureates, has been issuing Sohn's recordings).
There's been a flurry of fresh interest in Bach's Goldberg Variations since New Yorker Simone Dinnerstein stunned us with her Romantically flavoured recording four years ago. She made them as much her own as Glenn Gould had done a half-century before.
Being music written for harpsichord, the Goldergs leave a pianist open to a wide range of options when able to take advantage of the much, much larger tonal and dynamic palette offered by a modern piano.
Although I love Dinnerstein's interpretation, and have a lot of respect for Gould's original take, my personal gold standard is Russian pianist Evgeni Koroliov. I'm eagerly anticipating Canadian pianist David Jalbert's recently completed recording, which is being released in the fall (we can get a preview of his thinking at the Elora Festival on Jul. 30, when he presents the full Goldbergs in recital at St. John's Church, at 4 p.m.)
This review didn't make it in to today's Star:
NICHOLAS ANGELICH
Goldberg Variations (Virgin)
**1/2 (out of 4)
The gentle “Aria” that begins J.S. Bach’s legendary Goldberg Variations might fool you into thinking this is going to be a soft, seductive journey through a famous keyboard suite that marks the 270th anniversary of its publication this year.
But American pianist, and occasional Toronto Symphony guest, Nicholas Angelich has exaggerated each variation’s character, creating an 80-minute marathon punctuated by dynamic and stylistic contrasts: Slow variations are slower than usual; fast ones are dizzyingly fleet.
You can marvel at this man’s phenomenal control and technique, but this is one of those journeys that doesn’t improve with each return visit.
+++
Here are four clips: 1. Angelich (Aria), 2. Koroliov (Var. III-VII, 2009) 3. Gould (Var. XII-XIX, 1955), 4. Dinnerstein (Var. XXV):
NOTTURNA
Johann Gottlieb Janitsch, Sonate da camera, Vol. II (ATMA)
****
Montreal period-performance oboist Christopher Palameta (who spent three seasons with Tafelmusik in the mid-2000s) and his wind-focused chamber ensemble Notturna are back with a second volume of Chamber Sonatas by German Baroque composer Johanan Gottlieb Janitsch.
As was the case for the first album, in 2009, this outing is a pleasure in the choice of music as well as the interpretations. (For full details of the album and audio samples, visit ATMA's website by clicking on the group's name at the top of this review.)
This may be Vol. II, but the musical material sounds like the pick of the crop. Four of the five pieces on the disc are world-premiere recordings.
Palameta and his consort perform with breathtaking elegance. One of the hallmarks of this music, most of which dates from Janitsch's later years (he lived from 1708 to 1763), is that the instruments need to blend with each other seamlessly -- which is not easy to achieve when you have the very different timbres of transverse flute, oboe d'amore, cello and harpsichord to combine.
All five of the sonatas collected here feature a mix of transverse flute, oboe and oboe d'amore over continuo. The three Sonate da camera were most likely written to be performed at the composer's weekly Friday salons at his home in Berlin, where he worked as one of the musicians in the Prussian court of Frederick the Great.
This is gorgeously crafted music, following a slow-fast-fast, three-movement form that was popular in Germany at the time. Notturno's careful work only serves to make the music more beautiful. Janitsch's craft becomes more impressive the more one listens.
The final two pieces are titled Sonate de chiesa, but were not meant to be performed in church. Unlike the typical Baroque Sonata de chiesa, which has four movements, these have three, with the middle movement a delicately executed fugue.
And if you're not really in a listening mood, the pieces make a fine, breezy backdrop for a summer's day.
This week's Tafelmusik concerts, which begin Wednesday at Trinity-St. Paul's Centre, should close the season with a high-voltage, violin-focused programme led by Italian violinist Stefano Montanari. Unfortunately, the visitor has injured himself, so he will be conducting, not leading on his instrument, but it should still make for a great concert experience. Montanari has been increasing the number of concerts he conducts, and will lead the orchestra in Opera Atelier's new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni next fall.
Because we won't see him play, I thought I'd share some music of Henry Purcell he performed last year with Montanari's regular ensemble, Accademia Bizantina, and countertenor Andreas Scholl. Here are a Sonata (No. 8, in G Major) and Chaconne, followed by Scholl singing "Here the Deities Approve" with continuo.
(This concert was a prelude to the making of Scholl's recent all-Purcell album, O Solitude, just as this week's Tafelmusik's concerts are a prelude to the recording of a new album here.)
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