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DiscountDelight - A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations (1955 & 1981)
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List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $14.16
Your Save: $ 5.82 ( 29% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Sony
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0696998770324
Label: Sony
Manufacturer: Sony
Number Of Discs: 3
Publisher: Sony
Release Date: 2002-09-03
Studio: Sony
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Please have this CD!
Comment: Often we listen with different approaches - the sound engineer listens to how it has been recorded; pianist will listen to how it has been played (if all the right notes were there :-) ), musician will listen too, may be also paying attention to singing as well. And as a musician, I used to pay attention to now little details like that, as later I realized - this is about the music primarily, and he was closer to God (as J.S.Bach intended) as we try to. Yes, he was emotionally unstable, but it doesn't matter. What matters is what you want to get out of it - stop judging his playing, or singing - listen to what BACH wanted to tell you!!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This Folks
Comment: This particular version of JS Bach's "Goldberg" Variations really should require no review at all; anyone even remotely interested in this kind of music should already know it. It is J.S. Bach -- the undisputed all time master of the contrapuntal fugue form -- at the peak of his compositional skills, as interpreted by Glenn Gould - a keyboard genius without parallel - perhaps the greatest classical piano virtuoso in the history of the human race.
Track for track what you have here is quite literally the most thrilling and intricate Baroque era single clavinette music ever written. In fact it is generally understood that the only reason the Goldberg Variations are not heard as often as Bach's signature work, the far more famous "Well Tempered Clavinette" collection, is simply because there are so few people around with the level of skill necessary to perform them.
Give extremely high marks to Gould then, because this recording is replete with rivers of sizzling notes moving flawlessly in all directions at blinding speeds...speeds at times too hard to even process through the human ear much less play! One can almost picture him at the keyboard, eyes closed, head cocked and bowed way over, both hands "flying" up and down the keyboard performing their simultaneously complex scales and counter-scales with an astonishing amount of intensity and almost un-human, precision-like perfection.
There are 30 Goldberg variations (not counting the two arias at the open and close which are illustrative), each variant containing between two and four voices, and each characterized by canons and other repeated sections, but the really interesting twist on this production is that you get 2 recordings of the same set of variations; one is Gould in his brilliant 1955 recording debut- the one that created the sensation which landed him on the cover of Time magazine at the time, and the second with Gould in 1981 just days before he died, back in the studio performing the same set in the same exact order.
Even the fact that much of this paricular collection is done on old analogue recording gear (circa 1955) adds to its pure delight, with tape giving back the true depth, clear spatial definition, and good old stereo separation taken away in this less personal "digital" era in which we currently live and record.
So it all makes for an amazing experience, truly so. I say: BUY IT, BUY IT, BUY IT--- even if you're low on money--buy it! Even if you're "Baroque"--buy it!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent!!!!
Comment: This is definitely a good choice for classical fans. One CD has the quick brilliance of the young artist, the second has his matured and perhaps more familiar rendition--what a comparison! I haven't gotten to the commentary yet, but the first two CDs are more than enough to satisfy the Bach-hungry fan.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Keats, Augustine, Dumas
Comment: Keats said, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty". Augustine said, "Beauty is Unity in Diversity". Dumas said "Simplicity is always perfection". Perhaps Gould's 81 variations is one of the magnum expressions of these statements in the history of mankind. He is evidence of man's highest ability to create at a level that reaches out to the Divine, just short of the creation of the Universe and mankind in itself. And the sound is excellent too. All I can say is I listened to the 81 variations for the first time last night; I was primed for them (through a few years of listening to classical music) and I had a look of awe and a childish smile on my face the whole 51 minutes. Treat yourself to beauty and buy it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: is it possible to rate it 500 stars?
Comment: After having roamed the earth for a few decades and sampled what I could of its delights, I must declare Gould's performances of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" (specifically, this 3-CD set) to be, in the final analysis, one of the 3 or 4 most heartbreaking and inexpressibly lovely things I have ever encountered.
Here's the story, though I'm no expert:
In the mid-1950's, Glenn Gould was a dorky and unknown Canadian pianist who recorded these pieces, until then considered too "cerebral" to have a very wide audience.
But the suprising grace and remarkable clarity of the performances shot Gould to superstardom, where, regrettably, he spent his tenure as a fey and off-putting crank.
Many years later, saddened and deeply bruised by life, Gould recorded the exact same pieces again, and they sounded completely different! Instead of being bright and vivacious, they were now somber and withdrawn.
And then, mere days after recording the second version, Gould was gone from the earth.
You are getting 3 CD's: the first is the 1955 recordings, the second is the 1981 recordings, and the third is a kind of interview disk done with Gould days before his death in which the differences are dwelt upon.
Nothing is perfect, however, and there are things that bother me even with these divine CDs.
For example, the sick and eccentric Gould has a habit of humming audibly and knocking the piano as he played. Endearing? Get ready for it in any case.
Also, the technical laying-out of the CDs could have been brought off more cunningly. For example, Gould had a way of launching from one piece to the next without much of a pause. Those who laid out the tracks for the CDs would have been wiser to make each CD one track, that it may not be interrupted. But as it is, if you rip the CD's to your computer or iPod, this will be a constant annoyance, as the tracks have to momentarily reorient to refresh themselves. (If you know what I'm talking about, make sure you rip the tracks as one giant track, and that should take care of the problem.)
Alas! I fear the earth holds few such treasures.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Glenn Gould's recording debut in 1955 of Bach's Goldberg Variations took the world by storm. His decidedly un-Romantic view, absolute technical skill, startling lucidity, and right-on rhythmic changes, combined with his eccentricities--audible humming, sometimes outrageously fast tempi--made him an instantly legendary pianist and elucidated Bach's music in a whole new way. Gould's final recording, 26 years later, was also of the Goldbergs. It's a more relaxed, sometimes much slower, more inward reading (although still very much his own, complete with oddly ferocious attacks and accents), in which he offers repeats of the first half of 15 of the Variations. Both performances are glorious, each in its own way, and this luxurious new set of three CDs is entertaining, a joy to hear, and revelatory; it belongs in any music lover's collection. The third CD is devoted to outtakes and chatter from recording sessions. At one point, Gould improvises "God Save the King" and exhibits how it turns into "The Star-Spangled Banner." And a long interview with critic Tim Page offers great insight into Gould's weird humor and unique outlook. A must-have collection. --Robert Levine
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