DANIEL BARENBOIM
at Orchestra Hall
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The origin of the Goldbergs is almost as colorful as the variations themselves. It seems that Bach received a request from Count Keyserling, a Russian ambassador to Saxony, to compose a series of variations on an aria to be performed over and over again to help cure his insomnia. They were to be played by his harpsichordist, Johann Goldberg, a student of Bach’s. The variations are among the most virtuosic and complex clavier pieces ever written. Whatever effect they may have had on the poor count, they have kept audiences on the edges of their seats for centuries since.
But Bach on the piano? Glenn Gould did it of course, and quite effectively, though such a performance has about as much to do with Bach as a Liszt transcription of Tristan und Isolde has to do with Wagner. Apart from the large church organ, the harpsichord was the king of 18th-century instruments, and Bach intended his variations to be performed on it. Anything else is a transcription, pure and simple–however much Romantic interpreters, with their Darwinian attitude, claim the piano has succeeded the harpsichord.
Incidentally, his live recording, done last fall in a magnificent concert hall in Barenboim’s home city of Buenos Aires, captures much of the excitement and structure of his Orchestra Hall recital, though it is an entirely different performance, being less Romantic and not as overpedaled. A comparison of this performance to classic recordings such as Wanda Landowska’s on harpsichord, either of Gould’s piano recordings (1955 and 1982), or Gustav Leonhardt’s or Anthony Newman’s more modern harpsichord performances will give a pretty clear indication of the variety of approaches. Barenboim’s is certainly not my cup of tea, but the fact that it rates with these performances shows how creatively he envisions the Goldbergs and how effectively he is able to bring off his views. It’s wonderful to hear someone actually do something with an interpretation, even if you don’t agree with it. It sure beats not having any point of view at all, a disturbingly common approach at piano recitals.
Those qualities are pretty much missing from act two, which concentrates on the more secular side of the work. In this act the wizard who was considered unworthy to join the brotherhood of the Grail and his double-agent seductress attempt to destroy Parsifal, who has set out to recover the sacred spear that wounded the high priest. This act calls for high tension and seductiveness, which Barenboim was able to muster up rather impressively. He kept the unity very tight and brought extraordinary playing from what is undoubtedly the world’s greatest Wagner orchestra. You would never have suspected that from the prelude performance, but act two was given extraordinary orchestral treatment, marred only by the painfully flat timpani that closed the act.
