Listening to Bach's Goldberg Variations over the years

I took piano lessons when I was younger, but was lazy about practicing. As we moved a lot, I had a number of different teachers. The last one was sour and mean and would hit me on the head with a pencil when I made a mistake. Needless to say, I quit!--It would take me a few decades to learn how to have a different reaction to such behaviors, but that's another story. I picked up playing again briefly in college when I was singing in the University Chorus. The worst grade I ever got was the C+ in the "Theory for non-majors" class I took from Professor Swackhammer during the summer; I may not have done very well in my little compositions working out figured base lines, but I loved the concepts. Because everything I composed probably sounded like the Scarlatti pieces I had learned, the professor didn't give me a good grade, but I learned what it was like to be considered "adequate but not excellent" in a subject.

I didn't play the piano again until last year, when I took some lessons with my wonderful teacher, Max. For the first time a piano teacher treated me with respect and taught me the rudiments of theory. It was marvelous, but when I started having the pain that announced my rotator cuff problems I had to stop. Now that I'm on the other side of that year and a half of physcial therapy, I'm going to start practicing again.

So, in anticipation, I downloaded this recording by Simone Dinnerstein of the Goldberg Variations by Bach. This wonderful review by Evan Eisenberg in Salon, puts her recording in context: the long shadow of Glen Gould, the evolving relationship of public to live performances and recording, the mythical origin story of the variations (that they were written to be played for a nobleman who had insomnia).
This video has an interview with her


Of course, there will be arguments about playing harpsichord music on a piano, about which interpretation is truer to the spirit of Bach, but I'm not a purist; I'm that enthusiastic C+ student who is enchanted by music.

I'm sure that if there was a recording of the Goldberg variations in our house when I was growing up, it was Gould's 1955 record, so my ear was formed by his first recorded performance. This video presents Gould's 1955 recording and his 1981 re-recording of the first aria that begins the variations, so that one can compare how the same artist changed his interpretation. There is an fantastic interview at the end of the clip in which Gould talks about the experience of re-recording the piece, how he went from the "speed demon" virtuosity of his younger self to the deliberateness of the later version.

Here, for comparison, is Dinnerstein playing the same aria. This video is part of a film project on Bach by Michael Lawrence. I love how he has filmed her hands while she is playing.