Bach: Piano Concerto, BWV 1052; Goldberg Variations

These three recordings of Glenn Gould playing Bach -- the Goldberg Variations and G major Partita taped for the CBC in 1954 and the D minor (not major as listed on the jacket) concerto performed in Salzburg with Dimitri Mitropoulos and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1958 -- have floated around the edges of the international catalogs for decades. The performances are typical of the young Gould: brilliantly virtuosic, breathlessly quick, and nowhere near as interpretively idiosyncratic as his later recordings. In the solo works, Gould is lucid and unsentimental, abjuring musical and emotional ornamentation while exalting in harmony and counterpoint. In the concerto, Gould and Mitropoulos battle to see who will prevail: Gould with his bracing objectivity or Mitropoulos with his fierce intensity. Listeners will have to determine the winner for themselves, but many would likely agree that the music itself, battered by their contradictory approaches, emerges as the loser. In terms of sound quality, there have been better and worse releases of these performances before. CBC's own release of the solo works, for example, has more clarity and presence while the various Italian pirate labels' releases of the concerto are far murkier. ~ James Leonard, All Music Guide