As a Bach pianist Jennifer Lim seems to be able to bend, clarify, and control polyphony to her will at any given tempo, and for the most part her Goldberg Variations tempos are breathlessly fast. Indeed, the whirlwind pace she sets for the difficult cross-handed variations leaves Glenn Gould’s rapid-transit 1955 debut recording at the starting gate. She even gives speed demons like Alexis Weissenberg and Andrei Gavrilov a run for their money, investing the music’s most virtuosic challenges with awesome lightness and specificity. By contrast, in the minor key variations Lim settles into a more relaxed, lyrical style, where her pianistically-oriented right-hand lines dominate. Interpretively speaking, Lim’s veiled, measured, and inward renditions of the Aria prove strangely alien to the 30 variations they bookend. I also feel that the pauses between each variation are longer than they need to be and severely compromise the music’s continuity and cumulative momentum.
The Italian Concerto follows a similar roller-coaster course: two light and speedy outer movements bracketing a moderate, introspective, and beautifully modulated slow movement where the right-hand melody dominates (in contrast to Angela Hewitt and Murray Perahia’s insightful layering of the left hand’s alternating bass line/chord texture). In sum, you’ll get more stylistic, aesthetic, and spiritual nourishment from our reference piano Goldbergs. But if you envision the Goldbergs as pure, unabashed entertainment with all the high-tech refinement of Cirque du Soleil, grab this gorgeously engineered release.
