Johann Sebastian Bach - Glenn Gould
Variazioni Goldberg

Everything began like this... one could easily say. It is from this recording that performances of Bach's keyboard compositions on the piano began systematically, it is from this recording that the extraordinary influence of Bach himself on subsequent music (from romantic to jazz!!!) began to be understood, it is from this recording that the myth of their performer was born, a very young Canadian named Glenn Gould. "The aria with thirty variations" is a work that the most famous Johann Sebastian in music history wrote in 1742 for his student Johann Goldberg, harpsichordist for Count Keyserlingk, the Russian ambassador to the court of Dresden. The count had expressly asked for musical pieces suitable to distract him during his restless sleepless nights. And since it was the aforementioned Goldberg who played at night for the count, here is the title by which they became universally famous... One of the main reasons for which they became famous is undoubtedly the beauty of this record.

Before it was recorded in 1955, it seemed as if the dust of time had settled on these notes: very few performers had dared to play them, and the decision of this unknown pianist, in his first recording, to tackle them had been met with much skepticism by manager David Oppenheim who had discovered him at a recital held in New York a couple of months earlier. And yet... in three-quarters of an hour of white-hot intensity, Gould gives an astounding performance: superhuman virtuosity combined with an astonishing sense of rhythm, a fascinating sonority linked to total expressiveness. "It was as if someone had suddenly flung open the window in a room that had not been aired for a hundred or more years, letting in the fresh morning air", wrote critic Michael Stigemann, and his words aptly convey the impact this wonder had on the world of music. An impact marked by the breaking of all sales records for a classical recording.

In short, a cultural product among the most distinguished of the twentieth century: for tens of thousands of listeners, new Count Keyserlingks, it would be most pleasant from then on to listen during sleepless nights to Mr. Gouldberg and his sonic evolutions that undoubtedly made him a myth in the history of interpretation, both pianistic and musical tout-court.