Another ‘Goldberg’ Gold Standard

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The New York Sun

When a pianist is young and relatively unknown, I approach a new recording of Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” with a little trepidation. The work is something like holy; and we already have a number of excellent, cherished recordings — the two by Glenn Gould, for example. But there is always room for a good recording — of anything — and a young woman named Simone Dinnerstein has provided one.

She lives in Brooklyn, and her new CD (Telarc) includes photos of the Brooklyn Bridge. We can safely say that never before has a recording of the “Goldbergs” featured the Brooklyn Bridge.

Ms. Dinnerstein plays with what you might call a Romantic purity, and she never does injury to Bach. In her hands, the aria with which the work opens is slow — but not too slow. Ms. Dinnerstein is savoring the music, and allowing it to unfold in its own good time. Some further details, or observations?

When you play the “Goldbergs” on the piano — as distinct from the harpsichord — there’s always the question of how much detachment to use. Of how detached, or un-legato, the notes should be. Some play these pieces with a Chopinesque line; others sound more like a typewriter. Ms. Dinnerstein strikes an excellent balance, letting musical taste govern.

There’s also the question, when you play the piano, of what to do about the sustaining pedal — and Ms. Dinnerstein uses a judicious amount. Again, taste. She realizes she’s playing the piano, not the harpsichord, yet she takes care not to muddy a thing.

As she goes along, each of the variations is an individual, and yet the hour-and-20-minute-long work is still a whole. Some of the variations positively explode; some of them are poetically reflective. When Ms. Dinnerstein is aggressive, she is not foolishly so; and when she is reflective, she is not languorous.

With maybe a couple of exceptions: An abundance of sighing — rising and falling — threatens to become monotonous. And some of the slower variations are just a tad flaccid. But these are marginal criticisms, rather than fundamental ones.

Best of all, Ms. Dinnerstein plays these variations with appreciation, awareness, and love. She is appropriately in awe before them, but not too awed to play them – that is crucial. The repeat of the aria, at the end of the work, is even more transporting than its first appearance — we have heard so much in between. Blake famously wrote of a “fearful symmetry”; Bach writes with a perfect symmetry.

Indeed, you might consider the “Goldbergs” an angelic mathematics. And yet, the musical inspiration is so great, the extremely brainy craft is almost unnoticed.

There is no doubt that Bach’s successors knew and revered the “Goldberg Variations.” You hear some Beethoven in them, you hear some Brahms. If you haven’t experienced the “Goldbergs” in a while, treat yourself to them.

On your shelves, or in your computer, may be a number of recordings – Gould, Tureck, and the rest. But you won’t be sorry if you make room for Simone Dinnerstein.

PATRICK STEWART & EMANUEL AX
Enoch Arden and Other Music of Strauss

And now for something completely different: In 1897, Richard Strauss set Tennyson’s epic poem “Enoch Arden” to music. That is, he composed music to accompany a recitation of the poem. He did this for the “home market” — for people in their parlors. And now a noted pianist, Emanuel Ax, and a noted actor, Patrick Stewart, have recorded it (Sony Classics).

“Enoch Arden,” for those of you — those of us, I should say! — who missed it in school, is about a boy, another boy, and a girl, and the lives they go on to lead. This is a triangle, essentially — and where there are triangles, there are troubles. If you don’t know the poem, you will want to acquaint yourself with it. And if there’s a nobler man in all of literature than Enoch Arden — I’m not sure I’ve met him.

(I feel safe in describing “Enoch Arden” as an epic poem because Enoch is certainly heroic.)

According to his note in the CD booklet, Mr. Stewart has “no musical abilities” — he is a “bathroom baritone.” But he delights in music, and he has plenty of other abilities. Mr. Ax, in his own note, declares himself “a true Richard Strauss fanatic.” He also says that he once heard a recording of the Strauss “Enoch Arden” with Glenn Gould and Claude Rains — that is, for sure, a pairing.

Strauss’s music for the poem begins surgingly, billowingly. Later, we will hear leitmotifs for each of the main characters. Mr. Ax plays with skill and feeling, and Mr. Stewart reads with the same. He draws you in, with that well-known voice, not letting you go. Mr. Stewart is dramatic in the best sense, and so is Mr. Ax.

Strauss gives signs of the operatic gift that would soon make him world-famous. And let’s not forget Tennyson: He wrote to last, that guy.

Mr. Ax fills out the disc with two early piano pieces, Op. 3. Pianists have almost no Strauss to play — no solo Strauss, that is. And these early pieces are lovely and interesting. They are also songful, virtually songs for keyboard, or songs without words.

The one designated “Allegro molto,” Op. 3, No. 4, is skippingly wonderful. And Mr. Ax plays it that way. In both pieces, he is thoroughly appealing, particularly in his phrasing.

So, this disc gives us something new under the sun — or, if not new, renewed.


The New York Sun

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