Two Goldbergs

• Bach: Goldberg Variations, perofrmed by Mahan Esfahani, DG, 2016
• Bach: Goldberg Variations, performed by Jean Roneau, Erato, 2022

I first experienced Bach’s Goldberg Variations by the harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock. From memory, that recording was clean; Pinnock, as ever, was metronome sharp with very clean playing. I am sure for many in the early 1980s when it came out, was a reference with which to compare with the recording by Gustav Leonhardt.

Among one of the more exciting recitals on record was that by Blandine Rannou, who for me, created quite an enjoyable sensation with her frequent use of rubato and ornamentation.

I never went around to deeply listening to Mahan Esfahan’s recording on DG from 2016. I thought in my want to review the new recording by Jean Rondeau that a comparison of these two releases of BWV 988 might be interesting, given the animosity portrayed in the press between these two performers. (My thoughts are that Rondeau is more cool, but not because of his hair, but what do I know?)

Sound Quality

I auditioned both of these albums with an identical setup using headphones. The Esfahani recording is very closely miked; Esfahani uses a copy of a mid-baroque German instrument. Rondeau’s album features a Knif & Pelto instrument, also based upon “German models.” His recording, however, is miked quite differently and ultimately I prefer the close-miking setup in Esfahani’s recording. You’ll honestly also want to turn down Rondeau’s recording if you want to follow both and do direct track comparisons as the whole album is louder. I’ve been a fan of Rondeau’s instrument choices in the past and give the sound of his instrument an edge over the one chosen by Esfahani, but both, honestly, have merit.

Incidentally, recording times differ by quite a bit. Rondeau’s clocks in at 1 hour, 47 minutes. Esfahani’s ends at an hour and 19 minutes. For those unaware, the opening/closing arias and the variations use repeats as they’re arranged in A/B pairs. The recording of this work has always been sensitive around performers observing repeats (and questions should then follow what to do, if anything different, during those repeats), but as a general remark, Rondeau is satisfied in taking his time with a number of the tracks.

As Glenn Gould taught us, the Goldbergs are up to the stress test of speed if that’s our thing. I think both of these gentlemen have set out to make this piece their own and in exploring them both, side by side, find that they have accomplished this in each their own way.

Esfahani ⭐️⭐️⭐️½

Esfahani approaches the opening Aria with a tempo that’s pretty typical for a lot of recordings. His first reading dispenses with some of the written ornaments (appearing as symbols in the score), which I don’t often hear, but think is a legitimate performance decision. He weaves them back into the repeats, which as is performance practice issue, using repeats to distinguish a second playing from the first. The way he applies the grace at the very end of the Aria made me smile; it fits the musician’s personality, at least from what I’ve been able to discern from recorded interviews, tongue-in-cheek, for sure, in the interest of being different.

The close recording helps us hear the articulation style Esfahani uses which is a significant contrast from Rondeau’s style.

In the third variation, the canon at the unison, I really liked the chosen tempo. I thought it would set him up to provide a rich tapestry of ornamentation on the repeat.

Esfahani’s playing is rhythmically firm in variation ten. There are subtle pauses felt near the ends of each binary pair, which was welcome, as it reminded me that assured pulse wasn’t being output by a computer via a MIDI file. His fine control of tempo reminded somewhat of my memory of first listening to Pinnock.

Variation sixteen is a favorite; Bach took on a big task in asking the harpsichordist to play in the style of a French overture, realized by, perhaps, an imaginary court orchestra at Versailles. I don’t think Esfahani’s rhetorical gestures are the most successful at conveying the richness of an overture opening, but I do like what he achieves nevertheless. It’s different and hearing new musical solutions with articulation is what makes listening to the same music by different musicians so entertaining. To live today with such riches! Esfahani manages to make a real crescendo with couplings mid-piece and ends with the climax of the crescendo with his left hand. Nice.

Variation eighteen is played clean and but the repeats, I felt, could have used some additional dressing. The change in sound with the use of hand position and what I am guessing is the buff stop is especially fresh in the nineteenth variation.

It’s hard to say what Bach was thinking with his twenty-ninth variation: I love the almost harried effect he renders as if he’s almost done pulling tricks from out of his sleeves. I feel Esfahani captures some of this rhetoric in his performance. While the machine-like qualities of the harpsichord are still there to be enjoyed, his rubato and time-stretching is really a nice addition here. The final variation is rendered without much rhetorical gravitas, but Esfahani renders it in less than two minutes.

Rondeau ⭐️⭐️⭐️½

Rondeau takes an eye-popping five and a half minutes to render the opening Aria (no worries, he balances it with a slightly longer rendition at the piece’s end). The aria does well to help establish Rondeau’s general playing style which tends to be more legato than one with emphasizing articulation.

In the third variation, Rondeau selects a faster tempo and does apply some moderate ornamentation on the repeats. The tenor voice/range of his instrument is the most beautiful.

Variation ten, Fughetta, features a subject that is festooned with a rather obtuse trill. Rondeau does well to make us note that trill and applies more space between notes, offering us a real contrast to what I called above his legato style. Rondeau adopts a slower tempo than Esfahani, but the same piece sounds so different between these two for reasons that go beyond tempo. I found both enjoyable but favor the treatment Rondeau applies to emphasizing that ornament.

I get the sense that Rondeau takes his trills up to, and into the next beat in his reading of Variation number sixteen. The effect for me, at least, and it could also be his wetter acoustic, makes the opening sound more orchestral. The ornaments he ads doesn’t tickle me in quite the same way that Rannou’s did, but their are most welcome, nevertheless.

Variation number eighteen is the shortest in Rondeau’s recording. I always think this canon at the sixth works well with some wind behind its sail. This is one of Rondeau’s readings that goes all out on articulation.

Rondeau’s reading of the twenty-ninth variation is very different from Esfahani’s; I feel he misses what I sense is Bach going nearly postal against his keyboard, hammering out those opposing chords. The cascading figures that follow, however, have a very natural, hand-played feel to them. Overall, however, this felt like it lacked a necessary energy or intensity reach me. His tempo into the final variation, the so-called Quodlibet (mash-mash of familiar tunes), really adopts the sense of the end coming near. His tempo is remarkably slow, I feel. One one hand, the listener interested in seeing how he can apply these different melodic fragments over the same repeated bass line we’ve heard now so many times is an interesting type of audible challenge. One can only imagine how this variation tickled Bach’s own audience, at his clever weaving of popular melody into something otherwise belonging to high art. I appreciate Rondeau’s treatment of this piece as a pre-coda, slowing down the Everest that the entire work represents, but both performances of the Quodlibet weren’t may favorites; Rondeau’s for the ultimately slower tempo and Esfahani’s for a lack of phrasing.

Final Thoughts

This piece has a lot of fans and there are a lot of recordings. Despite my desire to compare these two by choosing some individual movements, there are no “winners” in this review. Speaking in big generalizations probably isn’t helpful, but these two recordings reinforced for me the particular style of each of the artists that’s already been revealed in earlier recordings. I think Esfahani tries some things that are different and there’s always a place for that. We ultimately get to decide if those choices all make it into the fabric of future performance practice.

I’d characterize Rondeau’s playing, especially in his recording of the Goldbergs, as more heart-felt. Imagine singing the aria from Rondeau’s mind: the playing is free and loose and seems whimsical at times in a way that doesn’t immediately come from the printed page. Some might call this more “romantic” and there are critics of this type of interpretation.

Esfahani isn’t immune to this interpretive style, either, but he is very selective of when and where it gets applied.

I’m smart enough to know I don’t want to wage that war; I have no real fight in the game as a non-expert. I will say that given past recorded examples, Rondeau plays more like Rannou; and given my early exposure to Pinnock, in some ways Esfahani plays more like the Brit. Given more time I might find even more apt examples, but the recordings consistently, really, convey the style and personality of each performer.

And that’s not a bad thing. It means the technical facets that make this such a difficult piece to master have been ironed out to the point that one’s interpretive art comes to the top for us to witness.

You may be reading this review in search for an answer, however: Do I need another recording of the Goldbergs? Or—are either of these new references?

The easiest answer is that you’ll like Rondeau’s if you’ve liked his earlier recordings. The same goes for Esfahani. That’s cheating, I know. I may actually need more time to decide. But if I was facing the new CD display at a record store with only a $20 in my pocket, would I go for either one?

There’s a lot of originality I like about Rondeau’s style that for me ultimately had the very slightest edge here, but that’s because I like his approach at what I presume might be described as a laid-back style, someone who wants to take the time and resist the pyrotechnics to get into the music.

Thankfully they weren’t released at the same time; but yes, I’d spend my money on Rondeau but I’ll keep both in my preferred rotation over the coming years.