Bach - Goldberg Variations (Gould, 1955)

Sorry I've been remiss in updating.  I've been both sick as a dog and working like one, and trying to organize about a million other things as well.  Not to mention I'm over my space and bandwidth limits by a fair amount... but don't you worry about me!  Anyway, soon you'll have more updates.

Besides, it's a celebration!  Just had my 30,000th visitor.  Now isn't that something?

A while ago I took a class on Bach, and decided I wanted to seek out a copy of Glenn Gould's famous 1955 performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations.  If you haven't heard of them, they are a set of piano pieces based around a theme, very pleasant and complicated, and Gould's 1955 version was a kind of landmark recording, as he plays with such incredible skill and precision, although he also hums along occasionally and frequently plays the songs so fast that it makes you blink.  I couldn't find a legitimate and complete CD of the 1955 session, so I had to look online and found a copy in an obscure whole-album file format, which I had to split and re-encode, but now I have it!  And it sounds great.

I'm no music theorist, no classical aficionado, so I'm not qualified to recommend this on any other grounds than that I like it and it's interesting to listen to.  I like Bach, and this is an excellent recording of an excellent set of pieces by him, and that's enough for me.  I'm providing the famous aria and variations 12 and 20, just because I feel like it.

Bach - Goldberg Variations - Aria (Glenn Gould)
Bach - Goldberg Variations - Variation 12 (Glenn Gould)
Bach - Goldberg Variations - Variation 20 (Glenn Gould)