你好 Hi! Maybe I’ll regret saying this, but right now this is my favorite Brahms concerto recording. It’s certainly one of the best violin performances I’ve ever heard, either live or on record. Brahms always seems to bring out the best in players. So what can the combination of a master violinist like Oistrakh and a great conductor like Klemperer add? The answer: plenty. For one thing they give the music a riveting soulfulness that in no way detracts from Brahms’ Beethovenesque/ heroic stance and so comes closer to that unique, autumnal mix of what is the essential Brahms – at least for me.

What’s in my player: Brahms: Violin Concerto in D., Op. 77 – David Oistrakh, Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Francaise – Otto Klemperer, cond., EMI – 7243 74724 2

Together Klemperer and Oistrakh have hammered together such an awesome interpretation that I find myself forgetting to listen for the violin part or for the orchestra, but simply hearing the music for itself. This level of musicianship has got to make this one of the treasures of recorded music. Everywhere there is the kind of depth of agreement between soloist and conductor that you hardly ever hear in an orchestra hall these days. At times they almost seem to be improvising, although what they’ve achieved could never be found just by chance. Their playing has the feel of the final exposition of some closely guarded secret – understated and underplayed in places, yet with an eloquence that gradually works its way to the ears and brain of the listener. These two have come closest to Brahms’s absolute center, his unique voice.

And if you think the Brahms is extraordinary, just wait until you hear the sublime Mozart Sinfonia concertante in E that's included on this CD reissue. Oistrakh plays viola with his son Igor on the violin, a classic double act and the dramatic pitting of ego against ego. Whatever, this is the kind of perfection in music making every artist seeks and rarely finds. Unbeatable!

你好Great Chopin pianists are few and far between. Like the Himalayas, many musicians try to master the endlessly technically demanding and subtle requirements of one of the world’s greatest composers for the piano, but very few have the poise, lucidity and sheer discernment to make the grade. I know the word will probably cause a sneer or two, but nobility is also an ingredient.

Claudio Arrau (1903-91) was one of the twentieth century’s greatest pianists – or as one writer put it, “like God reaching out to Adam on Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, liquid, mysterious and profoundly alive…” It sounds like way too much, until you hear Arrau play Chopin, leaving no stone unturned, looking for insight.

Arrau called performing Chopin giving blood; the intensity and passion of his playing coupled with incredible nobility, is not far from that. And the nocturnes as one of Chopin’s greatest achievements are worthy of it all.

In the 19^th century the nocturnes were usually thought of as deathbed confessions, as opposed to say, the Waltzes or the Polonaises. There is a slippery, mysterious quality to them, again paradoxically paired with a dark, slippery chromaticism that foreshadows Wagner and maybe even Debussy.

What’s in my player: Chopin: Nocturnes – Claudio Arrau – Philips 416-441-2

Quite a different take than say, Horowitz or Rubinstein, Arrau is super-intense, but these recordings are among his greatest achievements. Everything is distilled and deeply thought out, voiced and balanced with super-human clarity. There are no extra roulades or frills – Arrau is totally honest without being in the least showy. (Lang Lang - or Bang Bang as he is known in the music world – eat your heart out.) Tempos are slow enough so that the music can breath, and at the same time there’s nothing phony, no smoothing over of details. Lyricism? Arrau goes way beyond lyricism to give every note its due.

These aren’t romantic character pieces, fit for the salon, as most people think of Chopin. As Arrau plays them, they are epic, “a glance is spun into a poem, a sigh into a novel.”

Also in my player: Chopin: 51 Mazurkas – Arthur Rubinstein – RCA – The Rubinstein Collection

It’s impossible to limit Chopin to just Arrau. Take Chopin’s Mazurkas for instance. They are based on an old Polish national dance from Mazowia where Chopin grew up. But the way Chopin has treated them is so rich harmonically and contrapuntally, it would be a big mistake to dismiss them as little folk dances. Legend has it that Chopin never played a Mazurka the same way twice. The same thing could be said of Rubenstein who has played the entire series at least three times. The version in my machine is the 1965 stereo version which combines a naïve country quality with mellow reflection. It’s difficult to imagine the mix until you hear it. An extraordinary example of the art that hides art.

Also in my player: Chopin: Waltzes Etc. – Dinu Lipatti – EMI 7243 5 66222

Chopin’s waltzes can be appreciated as little morsels for the salon or as individual mini-narratives. Lipatti chose the latter and came up with the best recording of Chopin’s waltzes ever made. Recorded in 1950 in mono, shortly before Lipartti died of leukemia, these renditions have the warmth and deep feeling that only someone like Rubenstein can approach.

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你好It’s amazing that music 90 plus years old can still create shock and awe, but Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring does. Listening to it, you can easily the indomitable Madame Stravinsky, Igor’s mother, refusing to hear it until some twenty-five years later. When she finally attended a concert, all she could manage to say was that she was sorry she couldn’t whistle. She was referring to the Rite’s Paris premiere in 1913 where the audience started pounding everything in sight, booing and whistling their disapproval.

According to Stravinsky, he had his “vision of a solemn pagan rite” in which a young girl was sacrificed to propitiate the god of Spring. Sergei Diaghilev, the impresario, seeing the potential for a ballet, urged him to work on it.

The whole set up (Stravinsky’s music, Roerich’s scenery and Nijinsky’s choreography) was so radical that a scandal was a slam dunk. Which was exactly what Diaghilev wanted to bolster ticket sales and bring needed publicity to his Ballets Russes . The famous fiasco of a première is usually attributed to Stravinsky's music, but in fact, although there was some grumbling during the introduction, the boos and catcalls didn’t start until the curtain rose and the dancers began their first spastic movements. In those days ballet and concert music were two completely different animals, and the Paris audience wasn’t going to stand for a combination.

The Rite had, and still has, a tremendous power to move people. Yet, there was nothing really new in the Rite. Stravinsky had used more than one key in Petrushka (introduced the year before). Irregular timings and syncopation were old news. Discord itself was also nothing to write home about - Strauss and Mahler had already done it - but Stravinsky’s violent in-your-face, throbbing blending of all them, pushing melody and harmony into the background, changed music forever.

The Rite is divided into two parts; the primitive, elemental Adoration of the Earth and the Sacrifice of the Virgin, at the end of which, she dances convulsively and then crashes to the ground, her blood fertilizing it for another season. Whether you love it, as I do, or loathe it, it’s impossible to be indifferent to this music. It’s awesome, compelling stuff.

What’s in my player: Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du printemps) – Kirov Orchestra – Valery Gergiev, Conductor

I’ve heard or owned other versions of this, Bernstein with the NY Philharmonic, Muti’s and Antal Dorati’s – even Stravinsky’s own , but none of them can compare with Gergiev’s. Instruments make sounds you’ve never dreamt they could make; they shriek, they moan, they shudder, and through it all that elemental rhythm pounds its way into your living room the way it never has for anyone else. Gergiev, in complete control like a master showman, makes none of it sound contrived, but intrinsically part of the drama of the piece.

At the shattering climax, when the exhausted Virgin falls to the earth and the orchestra collapses and shatters, your heart is in your throat. The (live) recording is top notch - a tremendous tour de force!

J. Mark Goldman

How are we doing? Emal us with any observations, thoughts or suggestions at jeffrey.mark.goldman@gmail.com

你好 I don’t remember what drew me to this music. Someone gave it to me as a present and it sat in my record bin for weeks before I even touched it. I had never heard of Elgar, and was skeptical about English romantic music. As far as I knew, the influence of Wagner and Stravinsky had passed over, leaving English music untouched, stuck in a Victorian groove. Never mind the Beatles and Rolling Stones, I’d always thought of the British as formal, overly conservative and emotionally repressed, having a stiff upper lip, so I wasn’t expecting much.

But the minute I heard that bow drawn across the strings, and rich, faintly nasal sound of the cello, I was hooked. Every phrase is alive and brimming with feeling. At times this is a fierce piece; sometimes it seems almost too much, and then there are passages that are almost whispered, coming straight from someone’s soul. It is Elgar’s last large work and his greatest; written to commemorate the First World War, the loss of life – the most enormous the world had seen up to that time. But even more, Elgar was mourning the passing of a way of life. The world had become industrialized, impersonal and Britain was no longer the center.

Don’t get the wrong impression, this is no dirge. It is a heaving, muscular piece, dark in places, ringing with vitality. Every single note counts, every sweeping phrase feels inevitable. In an instant the tempos can change from tempestuous to meditative musing and then back again. It doesn’t matter; you are carried along for the ride and you don’t want it to end. You just can’t imagine it being written any other way.

What in my player now: Elgar: Cello Concerto/Jacqueline du Pre, Cello - London Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli, conductor - EMI CDC 7473292

It’s astounding that du Pre was only twenty when she made this recording. In spite of that there’s a maturity, and a deep emotionality that cannot be denied. Every phrase she plays is perfect and full of feeling. Not for a second does she overdo the intensity. Which explains why the recording has sold almost a million copies. It has never been out of the catalog since it was made (1965).

Even though Du Pre opened the world’s ears to Elgar, and the concerto has been performed countless time all over the planet, her performance, particularly of the slow movement and the epilogue have never been surpassed.

As astonishing as this performance is, it would have been even more incredible to hear how she would have played it in her later years. Unfortunately we’ll never know what her mature interpretation would have been. A few years after this recording a recurring numbness in her fingers led to a diagnosis of muscular dystrophy and one of the century’s greatest cellists was silenced.

By the time I heard Maria Callas for the first time it was on a record; she was giving master classes at Julliard in New York but no longer performing. I’d seen a tape or two of her performances, but I became it was her recordings that made me a convert. It wasns’t hard – Callas was one of the absolutely top talents of the twentieth century and a sensation wherever she performed.

Callas, the lyric-soprano, was the sum total of many perfections. She was very educated and very conscious of words. The way she matched her words with the music was unique. And her voice, while flawed in her later years, and the way she used it was matchless – a combination of two different voices.

Callas was a master of transformation. To change from a fat, unattractive, unfashionable Greek girl, she swallowed a tape worm to lose weight, got a Paris courtier to dress her, and ended up entrancing Aristotle Onassis, the world’s wealthiest shipping tycoon. She died alone in Paris of a broken heart. Is it any wonder that someone who knew and worked with her said that Callas’ main problem in life was that she got so involved in what happened on stage, she forgot it was all art, and began to think it was life.

But her real genius was managing to be real on stage. The effect was never artless or easy; it looked like she worked incredibly hard to achieve it like she did everything else, but achieve it she did. With just her voice she could reveal the essence of a character. The fact that she was self-created, and self-invented coupled with her total belief in her characters only added to her genius. Somehow the cracks in that golden throat, those flaws at the top of her voice deconstruct the illusion of reality, at the same time they reinforce it, making her recordings totally unforgettable. Callas was the greatest singer-actress opera has ever seen.

What’s in my player now: Romantic Callas/ Maria Callas, soprano with various artists – EMI CDC557211-2

What a set! The CDs are enveloped against the front and back coves with a 100 page illustrated booklet in between. There are photos of Callas on stage, at recording sessions, in addition to ones from Callas private (or not so private) life. One in particular shows Onassis touching Callas from the front while her husband reaches at her from behind. All of her best arias are here, everything she sang that had some of her genius in it.

The first disc has her most familiar material. Personally, I like the second disc better – if only because the material is kinder to her voice. But in total, this is stunning, stunning stuff. No music collection can be complete without it.

How are we doing? Any suggestions or comments? Good or bad, let us hear from you. Email me at jeffrey.mark.goldman@gmail.com

你好Even though no one in my family or my extended family was involved in music, I was lucky enough to live in a town where many of the Boston Symphony musicians, including the conductor lived. As a result, the town had an active chamber music society that sponsored string quartets and trios to come and perform at grade schools and from the age of five, I regularly heard them at our early morning school assemblies. Mostly they played Haydn, and Mendelssohn, nothing cutting edge, but I loved it.

For a time I wanted to play the violin, but my parents must have thought hearing me practice would be worse than torture, so it never happened. Instead they bought an old upright piano and I was content to plink around on that until my parents gave me an old 78rpm record player. Long playing records had just come in, and everyone was getting rid of their old 78s, so relatives were more than willing to give me theirs. Suddenly I wanted to play “good music”. My parents decided I should have piano lessons. A teacher came to our apartment every week to teach me.

I liked studying music, but the best part was hearing my teacher play my next week’s assignment for me. But it didn’t have that richness and special intimacy of the chamber music I heard at school. Nor did those old records – my relatives had mostly orchestral music, which seemed narrow and straight-forward, not the back and forth conversation between instruments and the rich blending that so fascinated me at school. It was magical - almost as if the musicians were making it up the music as they went.

What’s in our player now: Debussy: String Quartet in G minor/ Ravel String Quartet in F/ Quartetto Italiano - Philips 420 894-2

Like rediscovering an old friend and not wanting to let them go, I can’t stop playing this. I’m convinced that the Ravel at least was one of those played at school.

There are some works that are so glorious that just a minute or two in their company is enough to inspire you. As wonderful and richly developed, both were the great French composers’ first chamber pieces. Although Debussy never wrote any more (except for some pieces for wind instruments and piano) till much later in his life, Ravel went on directly to write trios and the Introduction and Allegro for harp, flute, clarinet and a Piano trio among other pieces.

You can tell the Quartetto Italiano has had a long acquaintance with both pieces. The radiant warmth of their playing, the absolute sureness of their technique are things of beauty in themselves. And what music they’ve lavished it on. Even though this recording was originally made long ago in 1965, the music making is so enjoyable and spontaneous, it sounds like it was made like yesterday. To sum it up in just four words: Masterful playing on masterworks. Music making of this quality is not to be missed.

J. Mark Goldman

你好 It was during a weekend in the country with a bohemian family of a friend that I really heard Beethoven’s Third Symphony, the Eroica. I’d listened to it many times before, but never paid attention to it, but suddenly when this music came on, everything else seemed to stop dead. For the first time, I heard the amazing dissonance, the way Beethoven seems to fight, to pound against the walls of polite symphonic music.

Beethoven had finally begun to face up to his growing deafness and the end of his career as a piano virtuoso. He had considered suicide, but rejected it. Working his way past his own despair, Beethoven embarked on this break-away symphony, one of the most powerful and original things he ever wrote. It wasn’t rational and polite the way symphonies had been before. It was Beethoven thrusting his fist at the world. And it changed music forever.

Beethoven caught the new spirit of freedom and liberation that was in the air – a passion for doing away with the old ways, allowing renewal and rebirth. Originally, the symphony was to be dedicated to Napoleon, who was conquering and uniting all of Europe, which at that time, except for France and England, was a maze of city states and duchies and small kingdoms ruled by petty monarchs.

The story goes that on the day Beethoven learned that Napoleon crowned himself emperor, thus becoming just another despot, Beethoven tore up the dedication in disgust and renamed the symphony “Eroica”, the heroic. And I’ll bet added the funeral-like last movement with its deep feelings of bitter disappointment and regret ending with a cry from the horn section for what could have been.

But what must have been even more stunning for Beethoven's audience is the addition of autobiographical material, Beethoven's feelings. There had been small examples of composers doing this before, an inkling here and there, but nothing on this scale.

What’s in our player now: Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 :”Eroica”, Otto Klemperer/Philharmonia Orchestra EMI S67741 2 4

This is the very performance that made me hear this symphony for the first time that weekend many years ago. And my ears didn’t deceive me, it’s a truly great performance; the kind that only comes by only once in a great while. It’s fortunate that EMI has reissued it on their Great Recordings of the Century series, because no version I’ve heard can hold a candle to it.

There’s a leanness and an absolute honesty about it; nothing is allowed to come between you and the spirit of the music, nothing feels added on, there’s no fuss, no pulling back, just lots of warmth and strong feeling. Klemperer’s virile conducting lets all of the defiance and sheer will power as well as the sadness of the last movement shine through. Even if the recording is old (1954) and in mono, this is a jewel of a Beethoven performance. Like a pearl that must be worn next to the skin to show its luster, this recording only grows richer and more satisfying the more you listen to it.

How are we doing? Any suggestions or comments? Let us hear from you. Email me at jeffrey.mark.goldman@gmail.com

你好 Talk about productivity, nothing has ever equaled Mozart’s musical output from 1784-86. Not only did he write the opera “The Marriage of Figaro”, he wrote the Prague Symphony, and the six quartets dedicated to Haydn, twelve piano concertos, six of which date from one year, 1784. Wow! Given the quality of the work, this has got to be one of the greatest feats of musical genius the world has ever known.

Not only did Mozart compose all this music, he taught students as well. It was the only way to keep a roof over his head, food on the table, and clothes on his back - seeing that Mozart was one of the first free-lance composers, without the court or church job, that musicians traditionally had up to this time. And he’d practically gone through all the money he’d made from his smash opera “The Abduction from the Seraglio”. At the age of twenty-eight his musical genius was well developed, but his political skills were, to put it mildly, on the thin side, so working for a local noble or municipal/church authority was out of the question.

As a child prodigy, Mozart had been a nomad, dragged all over Europe by his father to perform in front of the courts of Europe. So as one of the first cosmopolitans, Mozart absorbed all the music styles of his time. Which made him an amazingly facile composer. But the more I’ve been able to hear the work of other musicians of his time, the more I’ve come to see what relative mediocrities they were. Their curse is simply that they didn’t have Mozart’s inventive genius.

It’s not the well mannered surface ease with which Mozart expressed himself, that’s made his music last. There’s something else, another layer of meaning. There’s the unique, international Mozartian voice that develops and grows throughout his work. It makes listening to the other composers from the late 18^th century, Antonio Salieri, Clementi, and Stamitz, sound like they are just going through the motions, phoning their work in. Hasse, an operatic composer heard Mozart’s music and wrote that it would probably consign all of the competition to the garbage heap. And as it turned out, he was right on the money.

What’s in our player now: Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 17 K. 453, and Piano Concerto No. 18, K.456 Murray Perahia/English Chamber Orchestra – Sony SMK 36686

Murray Perahia is one of the world’s greatest living pianists. And these piano concerto recordings made in the early 80’s, are a perfect example of what makes his playing so very special. Perahia doesn’t flash and flail, performing like the virtuosos of old. He has mastered the very difficult art of making the complex seem simple.

My favorite, Concerto No. 17, was one Mozart wrote for one of his well-heeled pupils, Barbara Ployer. Mozart evidently thought very highly of her, since he also wrote the Piano Concerto No. 14 for her as well as the Sonata for Two Pianos. Ms. Ployer was the first person to perform the concerto at her father’s, a wealthy Viennese official’s house.

The slow movement, known as the Rhondo is particularly beautifully movingly done. Perahia’s style of playing is almost that of a singer, and is radiant. Occasionally, I hear a hushed, overly genteel touch to it, like Perahia is self-consciously holding back, when a stronger, more straight-forward treatment would work ever better. But these quibbles are virtually nothing compared to what Perahia has managed to bring off, some of the most scintillating Mozart I’ve heard played in a long time. The more I listen, the more impressed I become.

J.Mark Goldman

“Classical music is one of the highest expressions of our humanity - it defines us and tells so much about who we are and what makes life worth living. Classical music is as necessary to our happiness, inspiration and understanding of life as the paintings of a great artist like Van Gogh or a natural wonder like the Grand Canyon....”

你好 I came across this quote from Alan Gilbert, Chief conductor and artistic advisor to the Royal Stockholm PO, and music director of Santa Fe Opera as I was listening to Strauss’ music and it stopped me in my tracks. Because if there ever was a musician whose life was a terrible expression of humanity it had to be Richard Strauss.

Perhaps there were people in Germany who really didn’t know what was going on during the Nazi reign, but Strauss was not one of them. As fellow composers, conductors and musicians were kicked out of their jobs and either fled or were carted away to the concentration camps, Strauss did absolutely nothing. It meant the end of competition; more goodies for him – more conducting fees, more performances of his music, and more honors. As the crown jewel of German music, Strauss could have done any number of things to save some of the greatest musicians and musical minds of the century, but he never lifted a finger. Not even when his own mother-in-law was carted away.

Strauss was interested in one thing and one thing only, his music – and the fees he could make from his music. If the Nazi regime meant that the writing and performing of practically all 20^th century music was forbidden, leaving little but Strauss’s music and his forebears’, he was fine with it.

Let’s not mince words, the man was totally self-involved and if you can be evil without actually picking up a weapon and killing people, Strauss was as evil as they come.

When Germany was bombed into defeat, Strauss was a sick, crushed man living in exile, hiding from his past. The cities and concert halls where he had been acclaimed were rubble. People were starving in the streets. His dreams of a musical culture with him at its head turned to dust.
And yet out of that came some of the most magnificent, most moving things he ever wrote. Case in point, what’s in our player now:

R. Strauss: Four Last Songs etc., Elisabeth Schwarzkopf – Soprano/ Philharmonia Orchestra –Ackermann, Conductor EMI CDH 7610012

No discussion of the world’s greatest music could be complete without Schwartzkopf’s incredibly moving readings of the Four Last Songs; Beim Schlaffengehen (On going to Sleep), September, Fruhling (Spring) and Im Abendrot (At Dusk). In 1948 Strauss wrote them separately, not thinking of them to be performed as a cycle. There have been arguments about the order of the songs, but the issue seems at least to me to be meaningless. Strauss might have had some ideas on the subject, but he never lived to hear these songs performed.

You don’t have to know German or the poetry Strauss picked, to understand in Schwartzkopf’s beautiful, limpid tones that float high over the crescendos of the orchestra, that this was a man who knew his life was coming to a close and that he was about to face death. That’s particularly true in Im Abendrot. Written in 1946 as the first of the four songs, (but always performed as the last one) Strauss saw death as a serene, peaceful leave taking, not a resignation to savage forces greater than he. And even at the edge of darknesss, there is some hope. You can hear it in the birds chirping in the distance at the very end of the song.

This (mono) recording communicates all that. Some conductors treat the four songs as one long dirge, taking them so slowly that the musical phrases practically fall apart, but not this rich, warm version, which moves you while at the same time avoiding the melodramatic.

Expressing what cannot be put into words is what music at its greatest can do. Listen to this a few times, until you get accustomed to its scope and its emotional vocabulary and you will see for yourself. When a man dies, a light leaves the world. Richard Strauss may have stood for everything that’s evil, but you have to hand it to him, he could write music like a god.

J Mark Goldman

古典音樂 俱樂部 Classical Music Club - 你好

你好 Hi! I’m J. Mark Goldman and I’d like to invite you to join with me in exploring the world’s greatest classical music.

In the vast and wide-ranging world of 'classical' music there is truly something for everyone - pieces which once discovered represent the start of an exciting and irresistible journey which will provide a lifetime's pleasure. For example, those who are particularly excited by hearing instrumentalists working at full stretch will thrill to the likes of Liszt and Paganini, or if something a little more reserved and self-contained is required, the chamber music of Haydn or Mozart would be a good starting point.

Any attempt to define what is meant literally by the term 'classical' music is difficult. How can you put into just a few words a musical tradition which encompasses such infinite varieties of style and expression, from the monastic tones of Gregorian chant to the jazz shadings of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, from the elegant poise of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik to the dark, stormy emotionalism of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony?

With such an amazing variety of material available, it is an awesome job to know just where to begin your disc collection, and as a result expensive mistakes are often made as tempting looking purchases turn out to be a disappointing. This is where this blog can really come into its own, and where I hope this blog will help you to choose the kind of music that will bring you a unique and deeply moving human experience.

But that’s just really an excuse for the main reason we’re posting this blog: we want to share with you the music we love, some of the greatest music the world has ever heard.

We’re not going to go through classical music from A to Z, nor are we going to go through it chronologically. History is fine, but we’re going to write about remarkable concerts we’ve heard by some of the world’s greatest (The Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to name just a few) or just whatever CD we’ve just heard.

But we want to hear from you. Email us at Jeffrey.Mark.Goldman@gmail.com, slip notes under our door, leave comments or questions, approach us late at night in one of our wateringholes with any information, suggestions or opinions on classical music. Or just to tell us how we are doing.

J.Mark Goldman.

In our player now:

JS Bach: Goldberg Variations (The Complete Goldberg Variations/Glenn Gould, piano
Sony S3K 87703)

This is one of the first classical music albums I owned, a birthday gift from a friend. I had heard of Bach, but this was the first time I really listened. Even though I had nothing else to compare it to, what an amazing performance it was! Bach was sedate, respected, disciplined, and scholarly, and here was Gould, a Canadian near-recluse with the face of an unworldly poet, an eccentric with his bottle water, towels, his bottles of pills, and his special worn-out folding piano chair, swinging, dancing his way through it!

There’s an electricity, and a driving urgency to the Goldberg Variations that I had never imagined Bach could have. It took repeated listenings for me to appreciate that the music is also soft, delicate in places, almost meditative. You can feel the deep values Bach held dear. There can be no lies, no affectation when Bach is played like this – and old JS’s inventiveness, his sense of humor, his love of life, it’s all there in those swirling cascades of notes!

If you can get hold of the three-CD Sony set, in addition to an interview with Gould, you can hear his 1981 recording as well. It was the last recording Gould made before his death, and a wonderful but completely rethinking of the Goldbergs - the only time in Gould's career that he wanted to re-interpret a piece. Both are amazing performances.

Myth has it, Bach composed it for a nobleman who had trouble sleeping. No one could sleep through this – unless they were deaf.