Bach: The Goldberg Variations (Glenn Gould album)

Recording process#

The recordings were made in 1955 at Columbia Records 30th Street studio in Manhattan over four days between June 10 and 16, a few weeks after Gould signed his contract. Columbia Masterworks Records, the company’s classical music division, released the album in 1956. Bach: The Goldberg Variations became Columbia’s bestselling classical album and earned Gould an international reputation. The record is now in the catalog of Sony Classical Records. At least one record-company executive questioned Gould’s choice of the then-obscure Goldberg Variations for his recorded debut. In a 1981 interview, Gould reflected on the studio’s situation: “I think the objections Columbia had, which were mild and expressed in a most friendly fashion, were quite logical. I was twenty-two years old and proposed doing my recording debut with the Goldberg Variations, which was supposed to be the private preserve, of, perhaps, Wanda Landowska or someone of that generation and stature. They thought that possibly some more modest undertaking was advisable.” Then aged 22, Gould was confident and assertive about his work, and prevailed in the decision as to what he would record for his debut—having also ensured that his contract granted him artistic freedom. Columbia recognized his talent and tolerated his eccentricities; on June 25 the company issued a good-natured press release describing Gould’s unique habits and accoutrements. He brought to the studio a special piano chair, bottles of pills, and unseasonable winter clothing; once there, he would soak his hands and arms in very hot water for twenty minutes before playing. The album gained attention for Gould’s unique pianistic method, which incorporated a finger technique involving great clarity of articulation (a “detached staccatissimo”), even at great speed, and little sustaining pedal. Gould’s piano teacher, Alberto Guerrero, had encouraged Gould to practice “finger tapping”, which required very slowly tapping the fingers of the playing hand with the free hand. According to Guerrero, tapping taught the pianist an economy of muscle movement that would enable precision at high speeds. Gould “tapped” each Goldberg variation before recording it, which took about 32 hours. The extreme tempi of the 1955 performance made for a short record, as did Gould’s decision not to play many of the repeats (each variation consists of two parts, traditionally played in an A–A–B–B format). The length of a performance of the Goldberg Variations can therefore vary drastically: Gould’s 1955 recording is 38 minutes 34 seconds long, while his reconsidered, slower 1981 version (see below) is 51:18. By way of contrast, fellow Canadian Angela Hewitt’s 1999 record is 78:32. The opportunity to perfect one’s work in the studio—what Gould called “take-twoness”—attracted him to the recording studio from the beginning, and separated him from a classical-music tradition which emphasized continuous live performance, even on record. He recorded at least 21 versions of the introductory aria before being satisfied. Over the course of his career, Gould became more and more interested in the creative possibilities of the studio. Gould wrote the liner notes to the recording. Concluding his back-cover essay on the Goldberg Variations, he wrote: “It is, in short, music which observes neither end nor beginning, music with neither real climax nor real resolution, music which, like Baudelaire’s lovers, ‘rests lightly on the wings of the unchecked wind.’ It has, then, unity through intuitive perception, unity born of craft and scrutiny, mellowed by mastery achieved, and revealed to us here, as so rarely in art, in the vision of subconscious design exulting upon a pinnacle of potency.”

Reappraisal#

Gould commented in a 1959 interview with Alan Rich that he had begun to study the Goldberg Variations in about 1950, around the age of 17. It was one of the first works that he had learned “entirely without his teacher”, and which he had “made up his mind about relatively early “. He noted that his performance view of the Variations now involved slowing the piece down: " That is about the only musical change that has gone on, but it implies, I think, possibly an approach of slightly greater breadth now than at that time… I was very much in a ’let’s get the show on the road and get through with it’ sort of mood during the recording . I felt that to linger unduly over anything would be to take away from a sort of overall unity of things… In part it was brought about by a reaction against so much piano playing which I had heard and, in fact, part of the way in which I myself was taught, which was in the school of the Romantic pianists of the Cortot/Schnabel tradition”. Gould later became more critical of his 1955 interpretation, expressing reservations about its fast tempi and pianistic affectation. He found much of it “just too fast for comfort”, and lamented the 25th variation, which sounded “like a Chopin nocturne”—to Gould, an undesirable quality, given his aversion to much of the Romantic repertoire. He continued, “I can no longer recognize the person who did that. To me today that piece has intensity without any sort of false glamour. Not a pianistic or instrumental intensity, a spiritual intensity.”

Track listing#

All tracks composed by Johann Sebastian Bach.

1981: a new recording#

Shortly before his death in 1982, Gould re-recorded the Goldberg Variations digitally and in stereo in the Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City; it was the last album to be recorded in that studio before it closed. He largely abandoned the showmanship of the 1955 performance, choosing instead a more introspective interpretation with more calculated phrasing and ornamentation. For the 1981 version, Gould sought to unify the variations by finding proportional rhythmic relationships between them. While the 1955 recording ignores all repeats, Gould now played 13 of the first repeats, while still declining to play the repeats of the B sections, which he felt undermined the sense of closure of each variation as it modulated back to the tonic (G major or minor). He repeated the A section of the nine canons, and the four strict four-part variations (4, 10, 22, and 30). Kevin Bazzana suggests that Gould wanted to “set apart consistently and audibly those variations in which formal counterpoint is of primary importance”. Arriving within a year of his death, the 1981 recording is popularly recognized as “autumnal”, a symbolic testament to Gould’s career. The album won two awards in 1983: the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance, and in Canada, the Juno Award for Classical Album.

Re-releases#

Both albums have been repackaged on numerous occasions since their original releases. For example, in 2002, Sony Classical issued a three-CD collection titled A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations 1955 & 1981.

Legacy#

The 1955 recording was added to the US National Recording Registry in 2003.

See also#

• List of compositions by Glenn Gould
• List of recordings by Glenn Gould

External links#

• Liner notes to 1955 recording