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For instance, Perahia is criticised for using pedal, and rubato. Anyone who has played this work (and other work by Bach) on the piano will know that it is technically not possible to make music out of every voice without judicious use of the pedal.

Besides, notes which linger on in Bach add complexity, and understanding. Often, holding a note a little longer demonstrates a horizontal (melodic) or vertical (harmonic) connection otherwise only hinted at.

Perahia is a model of restraint in his use of pedal, despite the criticism.

As for the criticism of the use of rubato, I suggest that for a start, the reviewer should define what they mean. Are they talking about within the beat, the bar, a phrase?

Whatever they mean, only someone who has not played Bach would imagine that it can be played musically with a slavish adherence to the metronome.

Rubato is only a problem when it obscures the sense of the music. In some epochs, more is permitted. In Horowitz's day, much more freedom was allowed. Horowitz is always convincing. As is Perahia, who is a model of restraint (to adopt the rubato-disapprover's sense of right and wrong) compared to Horowitz.

Perahia's uses phrase-based rubato and he conceives the music in large phrases. His rubato simply emphasises the architecture of the music, as he feels it.

Others call the performance "idiosyncratic". Ironically, some of these people prefer Gould, who is both idiosyncratic, self-indulgent, and sometimes plain idiotic.

Others criticise what they perceive to be his emphasis on the bass-line. Perahia simply gives each voice equal weight, which is exactly what the music calls for. That is the beauty of Bach, every voice is equally important. Other players (such as Schiff, for instance, when he plays Bach fugues) tend to emphasis what they perceive to be the melodic voice.

Yet another customer says that they "prefer Perahia's poetic period", which they imagine was years ago. Have they listened to his recent recording "Songs without Words", in particular, "Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland"? There has been no loss of "poetry" in Perahia's playing, though he has never had the weight, depth, and sadness of a player like Nikolaeva, which may come from the sorrow of decades of Russian winters.

Perahia articulates each voice faultlessly. He does not call attention to himself, and he uses a pianist's tools (ie, rubato, pedal, touch) to sculpt his interpretation.

It is a fine performance.

44 of 51 found the following review helpful:

Subtle and full of lifeNov 06, 2000
By J Scott Morrison
Perahia's explanation of his understanding of the technical aspects of the Goldbergs, in the liner notes, is exemplified amply in his playing. Unlike some commentators, he makes little of the canons occurring at every third variation, and instead emphasizes how the variations mirror the structure of the Aria itself in four groups of eight - groups of eight measures in the Aria, groups of eight variations in the piece as a whole. And he points out how the last few variations express increasing excitement until the last variation, the Quodlibet, then followed by the repose of the repeat of the Aria at the very end.

However, the point is not the technical analysis, but the playing itself. There are many, many felicities in his playing: the fairly rare but generally playful embellishments, the rock-solid fingers, the lightness of the fleet variations, the gravity of the slower variations, including the palpable grief of the last great slow variation, the onward rush at the end.

This is a great recording from a great artist.

23 of 26 found the following review helpful:

Well-engineered recording of an excellent artistOct 22, 2000
By John Averyt
I have only four recordings of the Goldberg Variations (including this one). Despite the general acclaim of the Gould recordings, I find Gould's rendition eccentric and not particularly thoughtful (sacrilege I know). Andras Schiff's recording is cold and lifeless - not far from what a computerized keyboard might produce if programmed to play this music. Daniel Barenboim's live performance is impressive and very introspective. I find the Perahia recording similar in both style and interpretation. This is my kind of Goldberg, without the exaggerated voicing or strange phrasing heard so often from other artists. I only wish he had cut his fingernails before recording this disc as the sound of clicking nails during fast variations is somewhat distracting.

19 of 21 found the following review helpful:

Lots to Recommend ItNov 08, 2006
By Snow Leopard
Of the many Goldberg Variation recordings that exist, what sets this one apart is the sense that Perahia has approached the cycle as a whole. This is not to say that there are not abundant piano affects and details--the playing is superb (in particular the occasional fluttering of trills here and there like butterflies is especially wonderful), and the tone of the piano is continuously warm and pleasant to listen to.

If you are already a fan of the Goldberg Variations, you probably own this. For those unfamiliar with the work, this is an almost perfect place to start to become familiarized with one of the greatest cycles of keyboard music ever composed. (It was written for harpsichord, but is particularly well-suited for performance on piano. To the extent that Bach liked to re-arrange his own music for different instruments, one suspects he would not have objected to hearing his Variations on the piano.)

As other reviews have noted, Perahia strikes a very apt balance between the kind of percussiveness one finds on Gould's recording, the technical correctness of Hewitt, and the slushiness (sorry for that word) of more Romantic interpreters. While this is certainly a strength of the disc, it is also sometimes a liability, inasmuch as one occasionally wants some Gouldian wig-out, or some of Tureck's protracted introspectiveness, or some of Gavrilov's theatrical brilliance. The impression is that, by Perahia's focus on the overall cycle of the music, there has been less attention devoted to stylistically rendering individual pieces. In other words, Perahia's vision of the work as a whole has muted the kind of remarkable contrasts one finds in other recordings; Nikolaeva sometimes similarly belies something of this "defect" since she too seems to be particularly aware of the architectural wholeness and progression of the pieces.

To say this may imply that there is a kind of homogeneity that overshadows individual pieces--that it feels "all of a piece" rather than a series of pieces. This creates a certain tension, to be sure, as I am waiting for the cycle to break out of itself ... which never happens, of course. It may be for this reason that one of the most noticeable features of this recording, as also a major point of attention for Perahia himself, are the differences he adds or subtracts when playing the repeats. This homogeneity does not mean that there is no variation amongst the pieces, of course, and yet ... What I'm really getting at is that I find it hard to listen to this disc all the way through in one sitting.

This is definitely a recording of the Goldberg Variations worth owning. All of the technical aspects of the recording are almost precisely as one could hope. Ultimately, however, I prefer to graze and nibble individual performances (selecting different ones at different times) than to listen to the whole disc straight through--the journey is not as compelling for me as Perahia seems to have found it. Or perhaps it is that Perahia provides me only one carriage to ride in for the whole journey. With Gould, occasionally I'm walking, sometimes running to keep up, sometimes turning about in a daze, but I'm more engaged in getting there. And even more so with Gavrilov's fantastic recording, which makes the journey back to the aria an adventure told by a raconteur.

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