Rating: 4/5
Review:
Not great Goldbergs
This recording has a good deal to commend it, but for me it lacks a little to make it a really good Goldberg Variations.
Keith Jarrett is a fine harpsichordist and a very good baroque player – I love his recordings of Bach and Handel with Michala Petri, for example. Here, his technique is excellent and he brings a truly lovely sound from his harpsichord, but the interpretations seem to me to lack a little depth and character. He takes the opening Aria at a funereal pace – it almost makes Rosalyn Tureck seem lively by comparison – but without the phrasing which would give it real meaning at this tempo. Other variations seem similarly flat to me and, while some do have a character of their own, I feel that there's something missing most of the time. Variation 8, for example, sounds charming and harmonious enough, but I don't get much sense of purpose or any real direction – just a pleasant sequence of notes, and Bach is so much more than that.
I think there's enough here in skill and beauty of sound to make three stars rather churlish, but it's only just four stars for me. I'll be sticking with Pinnock, Hewitt and others, I think, and I can only give this a qualified recommendation.
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