On Music

...And that is only the start...

...The repeats may not simply reproduce the first statements, nor is it musically adequate to handle each one in the same fashion...

...In "Come Draw We Round the Cheerful Ring," Sanders has a rousing drumming introduction and Ma, Kavafian, and White take turns in free flight upon reaching the fermata at the end of the stanza—a display that marks a dashing flourish in their high-spirited interplay...

...Some of the means of contrast are embellishment, change of phrasing and attack, plus (on the harpsichord) new configurations of registers to alter volume, timbre and touch...

...But they are lovely pieces: artistic idealizations of English folk melody for which only the pretentious are too sophisticated...

...This is manifestly in accord with Beethoven's intentions, for the instrumental parts are very thoughtfully crafted...

...The new album stands as the supreme statement...

...At the least, though, it can be said that Bach's scheme, like Dante's terza rima and arrangement of the Divine Comedy into 100 cantos, is a reflection of intellectual rigor, artistic discipline and profound spirituality...

...Her fingers and her mind are not only in perfect accord, they are outstandingly suited to the music's manifold demands...

...where the tone grows quiet, he can fall to a murmur without loss of definition or beauty of tone...

...The aria and variations arc in AB form, with repeats of both the A and B sections...

...In fact, the effect will be monotonous and crude alternation between fast and slow, loud and soft, and other simple polar oppo-sites...

...the effects can easily grow overelaborate...

...The trio's contribution is too good to be thought of as mere "support...

...The Goldberg displays one of music's grandest designs...

...Robert White Sings Beethoven (RCA ARL 1-3417) is the name of a new album wholly devoted to this repertoire, and the recital on it is wonderful...

...The aria, or theme, is a saraband from the notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach...

...jL*J eethoven's settings (for voice and piano trio) of songs from Scotland, England, Ireland, and Wales are rarely encountered in the concert halls...

...Even before the aria is over, however, the protean quality of the work begins to assert itself...

...every third variation is a canon, beginning with Variation 3 on the unison and rising, one step at a time, to the ninth canon in Variation 27...

...It is easy enough to speak of the Goldberg Variations' great depth, remarkable structure, complexity of scale, diversity of devices, etc., etc...

...His gift may be partly intuitive, yet it is grounded as well in a knowing use of tempo...

...At Carnegie Hall she once offered two accounts of the piece in one day on the different instruments to illuminate the contrasts they allow...

...Where the songs ring out, Sanders never covers White's line with sheer volume, but lifts and swells it with extra fullness from the keyboard...

...To the jiglike Variation 7 she brings a joyous lilt...

...White's instrument is essentially lyric, light and buoyant...

...I await their next volume with great impatience...

...The single miscalculation on the album is the inclusion of Bach's early Aria and 10 Variations in the Italian Style (BWV 989) to fill up the latter part of the fourth side...

...But the artist who uses them most lavishly may not be the one who uses them best...

...Now she has recorded the piece for a third time (Columbia Masterworks M2 35900) on a splendid harpsichord by William Dowd of Boston...

...Tureck's command never falters...

...Whether numerological speculation based on the composition's division into threes and nines and tens can yield any interesting conclusions is a question that need not be decided here...

...In the third variation?the first of the canons—Tureck blends the voices with a degree of precision that makes them at once inevitably beautiful and right...

...The reason for this is that they are considered a relatively minor aspect of the composer's oeuvre...

...Ma and Kavafian, whether in unison with the singer, in little cadenzas, or while weaving long-breathed accompaniments around the melody, make the feeling of each song their own...

...The tenor is assisted by a distinguished trio: Ani Kavafian plays the violin, Yo-Yo Ma the cello and Samuel Sanders the piano...

...The recital begins with the plangent song, "When Mortals All to Rest Retire...

...As the variations progress, Bach calls for shimmering flights of darting notes, brooding introspection, glissandi-like scales, sustained pages of double trills, and grand displays of technique in the most flamboyant virtuoso manner...

...Her exposition of the aria begins with an almost forbidding authority that sets the tone of dignity and high seriousness for the rest of the piece...

...he is by nature ideally suited to tender ballads like "The Kiss, Dear Maid, Thy Lip Has Left...

...But few artists are capable of bringing out these qualities in performance...

...It is, as Tureck remarks in her liner notes, "a work of delicate ingenuity," but following the Goldberg it has the effect "The Phoenix and Turtle" might have if used as an epilogue to King Lear: highly wrought, intriguing, and irrelevant...

...For the variations must be sequenced with sufficient contrast, yet the full dynamic range cannot be exploited too quickly or the great crescendo that builds up through the course of the work will not emerge...

...These means can be employed singly or in combination, or in combination with other combinations...

...Indeed, it is hard, in Bach's case as in Dante's, to decide what is more amazing, the unifying clarity of the overall conception or the infinity of detail and imagination at every point of its unfolding...

...Such orthodoxy lends her concerts an aura of mystical revelation...

...To hear them lead and answer each other through the expansive measures of "The Valley of Clwyd" is to know the fulfillment of the high collaborative ideals of chamber music...

...These canons, moreover, form a progressive framework for the intervening variations, which on the template of the aria's ground bass and harmony develop an encyclopedic survey of baroque forms, ranging from song to invention to toccata, omitting only the fugue...

...Her ascent into the final triad of variations propels us to what appear to be the most thrilling regions of music...

...In defiance of convention, she insists on calling the Master's Goldberg Variations by their austere, unmemorable formal title, Aria and30 Variations (BWV 988...

...Tureck explicates the Goldberg both on the concert grand and, with greater historical propriety, on the harpsichord...

...The freer flow and the lighter texture of the B section repeat recast the musical statement in a more conciliatory mode, and when the aria returns after the set of variations, Tureck's gentle, consoling playing seems to fulfill the promise of this brightening...

...For musicality, depth of sentiment, tact, and expressive range, their ensemble is hard to match...

...Only the final return of the aria is played straight through, in accordance with the demands of da-capo form...

...That her conclusion, with a lullaby repeat of the aria, takes us further still, is perhaps the greatest measure of Tureck's accomplishment...

...Even the laments move forward in bracing, strongly articulated phrases...

...For Variation 6, the second canon, she employs a fuller, mellower sound on the first statement, then releases a sharper refulgence on the repeat...

...The initial variation has amazing bounce, and her weighting of the bass line that lingers a touch at the first and fifth beats (of six) turns the measure into an exceptionally flexible and expressive unit...

...She has previously committed her interpretation of the Goldberg to disc twice, both times on piano...

...The audience was excused for a supper break...

...But individual brilliance is only one feature of the ensemble's art...

...Bach's runs, sales and embellishments require a performer with a flawlessly fluid and fluent technique, and that is not all...

...And when performing the piece—one of the pillars on which her reputation rests—she determinedly plays straight through without intermission, all repeats observed...

...Kavafian, Ma and Sanders, to whose advanced technique the music poses no threat, perform like true artists?lovingly and without condescension...

...The artist's imagination is further taxed by the many repeats...

...Indeed, the transparency of her textures, the wisdom of her ornamentation, and the discretion in her choices of register (which include such potentially disruptive special effects as whooshing open strings and the mandoline-like sound of plucked ones) continually illuminate Bach's creation...

...but in Variation 8 she steers clear of the sentimental, giving the perpetual motion a fitting touch of heartlessness...

...Along with the entire program, it benefits from White's poetic intensity and freedom from theatrical exaggeration...

...Tureck renders all these with unerring perfection...

...But his spirit is also bold and generous, and in such warlike tunes as "On the Massacre of Glencoe" or "The Soldier" he sounds forth with a true heroism that is all the more striking when the line is embellished, as it frequently is, with cadenzas that would tax a heavier voice...

...if ever an interpretation can be said to be the last word on a seemingly inexhaustible work of genius, this rendition by Tureck is such a one...