JS Bach: Goldberg Variations (arr. Chad Kelly)

Our rating

5

Michael Beek

Published: November 20, 2023 at 9:50 am

Our review

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations is recognised by performers and audiences alike as a paragon of keyboard music. The work is also celebrated for its remarkable contrapuntal writing and canonic ingenuity. First published in 1741 as an Aria with 30 variations for a two-manual harpsichord, the work concludes Bach’s Clavier-Übung, a project that occupied him between 1726 and 1741. Many subsequent arrangements have sought to maintain the work’s timbral homogeneity, but this new release from Channel Classics heralds a new approach that is equally radical and welcome. Recorded in September 2022, following the acclaimed online premiere from Brecon Cathedral for the 2020 Brecon Baroque Festival, Chad Kelly’s ‘reimagining’ of the Goldberg Variations reveals Bach’s music anew. Kelly combines plucked, bowed and blown sonorities in his scoring for ten instrumentalists (strings, woodwind and harpsichord). Through a diversity of genres – aria, concerto, fugue, overture and trio sonata – Bach’s music is imbued with timbral and textural elegance and profundity. Kelly’s varied instrumental juxtapositions and their resultant sonorities, together with Brecon Baroque’s usual stylish and impeccable playing, make one reluctant to identify highlights. The opening Aria and variations 14 and 20 give free reign to Rachel Podger’s typically bewitching virtuosity. Ebullient tutti sonorities include variations 16 and 19, and in variation eight the soundworld of the Brandenburg Concertos is close at hand. Lithe and articulate wind-playing from Bircher, Lanthier, Duarte and Klaucke deserves special mention, especially in variations 2, 15 and 18. Ingrid Pearson

JS Bach: Goldberg Variations (arr. Chad Kelly)

Rachel Podger (violin); Brecon Baroque

Channel Classics CCSSA44923 81:24 mins

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations is recognised by performers and audiences alike as a paragon of keyboard music. The work is also celebrated for its remarkable contrapuntal writing and canonic ingenuity. First published in 1741 as an Aria with 30 variations for a two-manual harpsichord, the work concludes Bach’s Clavier-Übung, a project that occupied him between 1726 and 1741. Many subsequent arrangements have sought to maintain the work’s timbral homogeneity, but this new release from Channel Classics heralds a new approach that is equally radical and welcome.
Recorded in September 2022, following the acclaimed online premiere from Brecon Cathedral for the 2020 Brecon Baroque Festival, Chad Kelly’s ‘reimagining’ of the Goldberg Variations reveals Bach’s music anew. Kelly combines plucked, bowed and blown sonorities in his scoring for ten instrumentalists (strings, woodwind and harpsichord).
Through a diversity of genres – aria, concerto, fugue, overture and trio sonata – Bach’s music is imbued with timbral and textural elegance and profundity. Kelly’s varied instrumental juxtapositions and their resultant sonorities, together with Brecon Baroque’s usual stylish and impeccable playing, make one reluctant to identify highlights. The opening Aria and variations 14 and 20 give free reign to Rachel Podger’s typically bewitching virtuosity. Ebullient tutti sonorities include variations 16 and 19, and in variation eight the soundworld of the Brandenburg Concertos is close at hand. Lithe and articulate wind-playing from Bircher, Lanthier, Duarte and Klaucke deserves special mention, especially in variations 2, 15 and 18. Ingrid Pearson

Reviews Editor, BBC Music Magazine

Michael is the Reviews Editor of BBC Music Magazine. He looks after the 26 pages of recording and book reviews in the magazine each month, deciding what will be reviewed – no easy task with so much being sent in for consideration! Michael joined the team in 2018, following ten years as a freelance film music journalist and fifteen years at St George's Bristol. Film and television music is his favourite thing, and when he’s not listening to things to be reviewed in the mag, Michael loves nothing more than to listen to the music of John Williams and James Horner – his favourite film composers. He was the Editor of MusicfromtheMovies.com and has written for the BBC Proms, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Albert Hall, Hollywood in Vienna and Silva Screen Records. His favourite writing gigs so far have been programmes for each of the Doctor Who Proms, soundtrack album notes for Doctor Who – Series 4 and Torchwood – Children of Earth, plus programmes and features for live concert screenings of Jurassic Park, Gladiator, Back to the Future and Raiders of the Lost Ark. While he never got the chance to interview the late James Horner, Michael was delighted to spend an hour on the phone with John Williams for the 2020 Christmas issue of BBC Music Magazine. Also a presenter, Michael has hosted concerts and live events for Bristol Film Festival and St George's Bristol, plus Debbie Wiseman's ‘Music and Words from Wolf Hall’ shows at venues across the UK. Michael has worked regularly with Debbie Wiseman over the years, writing concert programmes and scripts (for Terry Wogan and Simon Bates) and producing her 2011 album Piano Stories.