Johnn Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Goldberg Variations in G Major, BWV 988
rec. 2001, Subotica Town Hall, Serbia
Ratimir Martinović (piano)
Azure Sky AZ1001 [46]

A few things about this new release puzzle me: why is it being released now, over twenty-three years after its recording; why does Montenegrin pianist Ratimir Martinović not follow the general modern custom and play the repeats; and why (as a result of the second question) does this CD provide such short measure? No answers to those questions are forthcoming in the booklet notes.

Any of my regular readers will know that I have produced a survey of recordings of these most famous of keyboard variations and have since reviewed several subsequent recordings, one of which, by Hannu Alasaarela (review), I highly recommend. There is no shortage of options and the appetite among pianists to play and record the Goldberg Variations, and among audiences and the buying public to attend concerts and acquire recordings of it, seems inexhaustible. Indeed, I would not have asked to review this latest issue had that not been the case with me.

It is very closely and reverberantly recorded at a high volume, requiring a quick adjustment of downward knob-twiddling but after that it sounds better, if a little strident and “Technicolor” in impact; the listener might feel as if he or she is leaning on the edge of the piano peering into the works. As far as I am concerned, most everything about Martinović’s tempi and phrasing is judicious, although there is a certain air of dogged deliberateness about his staccato touch in slower variations and I prefer the trills in the fifth variation to be more crisply articulated, whereas the scampering runs in no. XX and XXVI are taken so fast that they sound a little smudged. Otherwise, Martinović often tends to replicate the more mechanical action of a harpsichord. I’m not sure whether his approach is internally consistent, however, in that for no. XIII, the first variation of any length, he suddenly adopts a more “Romantic” affect, employing noticeably more rubato. At times, too, I feel as if the right hand dominates the sound picture too much, but my main reservation is that I am now habituated to hearing the Goldbergs played with repeats, so I feel as if I am listening to highlights and each one seems to be all over as soon as it has started, although that absence of the repeats might be a positive advantage to anyone who wants the essence of these remarkable variations without potential longueurs.

This is not especially personal or characterful playing, just very crisp and confident. The ‘Black Pearl’, no. XXV, is always central to any performance. It is, again, quite boldly played. The proximity of the recording tending to emphasise a certain clangour and I derive no especial sense of concentration or exaltation in its delivery; it is rather prosaic. Compensation comes in a dazzling and dynamically more varied no. XXIX – but no. XXX is rushed.

At the close of this recording, rather than experiencing the sensation of having been on a journey, I rather feel as if I have been shown a series of snapshots. In brief, frequently pleasant and invariably competent though this is, I can see no compelling reason to recommend it over a dozen more individual and poetic versions by such as Beatrice Rana, Konstantin Lifschitz and Murray Perahia – or, of course, Glenn Gould.

Ralph Moore

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