Beautifully packaged, warmly recorded, and stylishly played,
Pierre Hantai's performance of
Bach's Goldberg Variations are everywhere very good but nowhere quite great.
Hantai's technique is superb, with wonderful articulation and a lovely sense of phrasing, and he's clearly thought through his interpretation. Each variation is well characterized, the canons are clear and lucid, and
Hantai shapes the whole work as a series of structural arcs climaxing in the catharsis and release of the final variations and the theme's return. But as fine as
Hantai's performance is, it never quite touches the infinite. The performance is brilliantly performed, but it does not plumb the intellectual, emotional, or spiritual depths of the music.
Hantai's performance convinces, but it does not compel.