Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
It was exactly Fifty years ago today that Glenn Gould’s legendary 1955 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations was released, and we’ll hear it tonight.
Before we get to that sublime Gould, however, we’ll enjoy a birthday salute to Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, born on this date in 1710. Violinist Bettina Mussumeli takes on Pergolesi’s Violin Concerto in B-flat in our first hour, with Claudio Scimone leading I Solisti Veneti in tow. And later in the program, soloists Barbara Bonney and Andreas Scholl join forces with Les Talens Lyriques for Pergolesi’s famous Stabat Mater (which, incidentally, was so popular that it sold more printed copies than any other work in all of the Eighteenth century!).
“We know of no pianist anything like him of any age.” That’s how critic Paul Hume described Glenn Gould in his Washington Post review of Gould’s American debut recital in 1955. The program was Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and on the basis of that one performance the twenty-two year-old pianist was signed to an exclusive recording contract with Columbia Masterworks (now Sony Classical). Tonight, let yourself to be swept up by the jazzy and intricate delicacy of Gould’s Bach – just as an entire generation was, those fifty years ago.
Before we get to that sublime Gould, however, we’ll enjoy a birthday salute to Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, born on this date in 1710. Violinist Bettina Mussumeli takes on Pergolesi’s Violin Concerto in B-flat in our first hour, with Claudio Scimone leading I Solisti Veneti in tow. And later in the program, soloists Barbara Bonney and Andreas Scholl join forces with Les Talens Lyriques for Pergolesi’s famous Stabat Mater (which, incidentally, was so popular that it sold more printed copies than any other work in all of the Eighteenth century!).
“We know of no pianist anything like him of any age.” That’s how critic Paul Hume described Glenn Gould in his Washington Post review of Gould’s American debut recital in 1955. The program was Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and on the basis of that one performance the twenty-two year-old pianist was signed to an exclusive recording contract with Columbia Masterworks (now Sony Classical). Tonight, let yourself to be swept up by the jazzy and intricate delicacy of Gould’s Bach – just as an entire generation was, those fifty years ago.
