Bach, J S: Aria Variata in A minor, BWV989 ‘alla Maniera Italiana'

As harpsichordist, conductor, and musical director of the ensemble Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset is one of the finest interpreters of Baroque music. His first recording for Aparté, devoted to Louis Couperin, was received most enthusiastically by public and critics alike, and collected many distinctions in the international press including BBC Music Magazine Instrumental Choice.

Now at the peak of his maturity, the artist presents an original programme, Bach Fantasy, in which he treats us to little-known works but also standards by the great J.S. Bach. Apart from the important sets of works, including the Goldberg Variations, the Well-Tempered Clavier, the keyboard Suites and Partitas, many miscellaneous pieces by Bach have come down to us in the hand of his pupils and admirers: early essays, pieces of a didactic nature, evocations of emotions, and sometimes all of the above. Christophe Rousset plays these pieces on the 1632 Ruckers harpsichord of Neuchâtel, one of the finest in the world.

Hyperion’s Record of the Month for July sees Angela Hewitt rounding off her acclaimed series of solo Bach recordings with this delightful miscellany. A range of genres are represented – fantasia and fugues, chorale preludes, suites, a sonata, a set of variations – from different periods of Bach’s life, and displaying a wide variety of form, style, influence and scope. This is music that has been neglected largely because it doesn’t sit within the famous Bach canons rather than because of its intrinsic quality. Angela Hewitt brings her customary style and elegance to these works, and her vivid, joyous music-making creates a fitting conclusion to this benchmark modern survey of Bach’s keyboard works

After the success of his two previous discs, devoted to Scarlatti and Clementi, pianist Olivier Cavé pursues his companionship with a Bach project.

Throughout his extraordinary career, Bach never tired of copying by hand the music of others, and the sense of eclecticism that would drive him to reproduce and adapt works, namely Italian music, was his way of achieving a very personal synthesis and creation, where abstract speculation and poetry would find their place.

These beautiful transcriptions were precisely at the origin of one of his master pieces, the Italian Concerto.

Four decades after Frederik Rzewski wrote his variations on Sergio Ortega's “El Pueblo Unido Jamas Sera Vencio“ (written during Pinochet's coup against Chile's former president Salvador Allende), this opus is not only a political statement, but is still full of actuality.

So much has been written about the sensation caused by Gould’s first studio recording of the Goldberg Variations in June 1955 that it is hardly necessary to repeat the story of this “birth of a legend” here. But even though it was this recording that laid the foundations for Gould’s international reputation as a Bach interpreter, its roots lie much further back. From the very outset his Bach had been as unconventional as it was distinctive – and so it remains, in spite of regular attempts to enthrone a “new Glenn Gould”. (Conversely, this has meant that every new recording of Bach’s keyboard works is judged by Gould’s standards.) His habit of slouching over the piano, the expansive gestures of his hands and arms, his stabbing nonlegato (almost always without the use of the sustaining pedal), his breathtaking polyphony and his often extreme tempi all result in a kind of pianism that seems to come from another planet, reminding us of Stefan George’s poem in Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet, “Entrückung” (Rapt Otherworldliness): “I breathe air from another planet.” [...]

DVD: The Goldberg Variations (1981) directed by Bruno Monsaingeon

Picture format: 4:3

NTSC; colour; DVD-5

Language: English (with subtitles in French and German)

Lorenzo Ghielmi has devoted many years to the study and interpretation of Renaissance and Baroque music.

He performs throughout Europe, in Japan and America.

He performs these works on instruments by Keith Hill (2001) and Andrea Restelli (2003).

“Halls is a formidably talented young keyboard player, bursting with energy and inspiration.” Evening Standard

“His inventive and ebullient playing is a delight.” Daily Telegraph

Matthew Halls is one of the brightest sparks of the UK early music scene, who, as director of Retrospect Ensemble, has rapidly established himself as one of Britain's most exciting young conductors as well as a leading harpsichordist. ‘J.S. Bach: The Goldberg Variations’, features Bach’s popular masterpiece for keyboard, plus Sarabanda con Partite and Aria Variata.

Matthew Halls’ debut solo recording presents J.S. Bach’s most significant variation sets for harpsichord in this, the second release in the Retrospect series.

The Goldberg Variations is a work that that continues to fascinate and astound performers and listeners alike. The artistry and technique it demands is met with virtuosic skill and innate musical understanding by Matthew Halls.

The two earlier works, Sarabanda con Partite and Aria Variata, show the extent to which Bach had become the true master of this composition technique by the time he came to compose The Goldberg Variations.

Matthew Halls is Artistic Director of Retrospect Ensemble, whose debut recording, ‘Henry Purcell: Ten Sonatas in Four Parts’, was shortlisted for a Classic FM Gramophone Award in 2009.

He has enjoyed a busy and exciting career, playing with many of the world’s leading period instrument orchestras, including the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Les Arts Florissants, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music, Theatre of Early Music, Montreal and New York Collegium.

As a keyboard soloist he has appeared at the Cheltenham International Festival; Händel Festspiele, Göttingen, Händel Festspiele, Halle; Enescu Festival, Bucharest; Ottawa International Chamber Festival; Antiquarium Festival, Moscow, Lamèque Festival, Canada and Dias da Mùsica, Lisbon.