Bach: Goldberg Variations

Pianist Simone Dinnerstein makes her Telarc debut with Bach's Goldberg Variations which she recorded in March 2005 with GRAMMY Award winning producer Adam Abeshouse.

“This recording contains some of the most beautiful, sensitive, intelligent and manifestly sincere playing you're ever likely to hear.” --Piano

"An utterly distinctive voice in the forest of Bach interpretation, Ms. Dinnerstein brings her own pianistic expressivity to the “Goldberg” Variations, probing each variation as if it were something completely new." --Anne Midgette, New York Times

The Goldberg Variations Made New

"I'm as tough a sell as any...I seem to have imprinted on Gould's '55 disk. Nothing, not even Gould's more spacious 1981 revision could shake my allegiance. Until I turned on my radio and heard Variation 13 played in a way I'd never heard it played before: pensively, wistfully, with an ebb and flow as natural as breathing...

"In the dreamlike fugue state that Dinnerstein induces, Bach seems to be channeling the next 200 years of Western music...the spikiness of Prokofiev, the ripple and shimmer of Debussy...In Variations 3 and 13, one finds the nursery reverie of Schumann's Kinderszenen; in 19 and 30 a sense of beatitude, that brings to mind Berlioz's Enfance du Christ.

"Dinnerstein is a throwback to such high priestesses of music as Wanda Landowska and Myra Hess. Remember the name: You'll be hearing it often." --Evan Eisenberg, Slate

J.S. Bach: Flute Concertos

“Marcello Gatti, Michele Barchi and the single strings of Ensemble Aurora are all superb, playing with grace and style. This disc is very warmly recommended.” --Gramophone Magazine, April 2009

“Three pieces: a new concerto, an old friend in a (not very) different guise, and a repertory staple. The 'new concerto' is a reconstruction by Francesco Zimei based on movements from three of Bach's secular cantatas.

In his booklet-note, Zimei sets out the reasoning behind his choice: it reads convincingly and, more important, the result sounds convincing as well.

Orchestral JS Bach The 'old friend', billed as a Triple Concerto, is none other than the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto in an earlier version, BWV1050a. Most of us would be hard pressed to spot the difference – minor variations of figuration, mostly in the harpsichord part, and four bars less in the third movement – with two exceptions: there's no satisfying chord to herald the reprise in that movement, and the famous harpsichord cadenza consists of only 18 bars.

The 'repertory staple' is, of course, the Second Orchestral Suite. Marcello Gatti, Michele Barchi and the single strings of Ensemble Aurora are all superb, playing with grace and style. This disc is very warmly recommended.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

MP3 320 · 120 MB