Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (arr. Tomáš Ille, 2017)
Radek Baborák (French horn)
Dalibor Karvay (violin)
Andrei Pushkarev (marimba)
Petr Valášek (bass clarinet)
rec. 2025, Sts. Simon and Jude Church, Prague, Czechia
Animal Music ANI146 [59]
When I requested this for review, it was mostly out of curiosity, but I have to admit, there was an element of amusement as well: the Goldbergs played by a quartet of violin, French horn, marimba and bass clarinet! Really? It arrived at the same time as a much higher-profile (and “normal”) recording of the Goldbergs, that by young Korean pianist Yunchan Lim at Carnegie Hall, a recording which I was also going to review, and expected to be very impressed by. As it turned out, I was very disappointed by the Lim recording, so this seemingly almost whimsical version became a palate cleanser.
To be totally honest, my first reaction to seeing the combination of instruments was to channel John McEnroe: “You cannot be serious”. However, when I thought about it, there was some method in the “madness”. After all, there was one representative from each section of the orchestra, and from the top, middle and bottom of the frequency range, so there would be tonal and colour balance. The booklet notes informed me that the original scoring included bassoon (instead of the bass clarinet) and guitar (marimba). I’m very pleased that the combination evolved, because I think the version presented here is more effective.
After one minute of the Aria, I already had a better feeling than I’d had with the Lim performance, because there was, literally, a sense of feeling here that I felt was lacking with Lim (and I recognise I am in a very small minority in thinking that). Each of the four instruments is “introduced” during the Aria by taking the lead in the melody, and the effect is quite lovely. The four voices in Variation 1 are well-balanced, so by the five-minute point in the recording, any doubts I might have had about how this was going to work were well and truly dispelled.
Tomáš Ille, the arranger, has paid attention to the nature of each variation, trying (mostly successfully) to match his four disparate instruments, and not being afraid to have one or more sit out an entire movement. Variation 6, where the horn and clarinet take centre stage, is delightful. Variation 18 is given over solely to the marimba, while the violin and marimba are given the complete duties for the Black Pearl variation. Where all four instruments are in combination – most of the Variations – it is true chamber music in that they are “conversing” with one another. The Quodlibet is one of the rare instances where they are in unison, and the result is joyous, as that movement should be.
Those of you who know the Goldbergs well will look at the runtime of under an hour and perhaps conclude that the tempos are very quick. In fact, it is quite the opposite. From a sample of a few movements that my mediocre score-reading ability allowed me to follow, it would appear that only a few repeats are taken. Had they all been, I suspect the runtime would have been more than an hour and a half as the tempos are, in general, relatively slow.
This brings me to my only real criticism of the recording, but it is an important one: there is not a lot of variation (pardon the pun) – much is at a tempo I’d describe as Andante, even the faster Variations are little more than Allegretto. By way of example, with Variation 26 that follows the “Black Pearl”, our quartet takes 1:22, with no repeats. Víkingur Ólafsson takes 1:43 and Beatrice Rana 1:53, and they both take both repeats. I recently reviewed an arrangement of the Goldbergs for string orchestra (review), and it suffered from the same problem, but its issues were further compounded by a degree of over-simplicity and a lack of colour, which is certainly not an issue here. Had some of the faster Variations been played truly Allegro or indeed faster, the contrast would have been very effective.
The booklet notes repeat the long-held belief that Bach wrote the Goldbergs for the insomniac Count von Keyserling to be played by one of his musicians, the fourteen-year-old Johann Goldberg. It is my understanding that this is now considered to be just a good story, more “interesting” than the real one, where Bach simply presented a copy of the work to the Count when visiting him. Irrespective of the veracity of the story, it is so well-known, it was not worth spending half of the space allocated in the notes to it. I would have much preferred to read more about the ideas behind the arrangement, but what is there is fairly bland and uninformative. The sound quality is very good.
I really thought this would be “a listen once or twice” for the purpose of the review, and that would be it, but I have really enjoyed the seemingly unlikely version of this incredibly versatile work, and will certainly return to it.
David Barker
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