A live performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations is always an event, and not just on account of the sheer quantity of notes. The composer famously left no instructions as to how the music should be played, allowing harpsichordists or pianists a great deal of interpretative latitude. And for all a performance might be planned out in advance, you forget that Bach was the greatest improvisor of his time at your peril. If that implies a necessary element of going with the flow, so be it.
Víkingur Ólafsson’s new recording of the work (released 6 October) is characteristically crisp, clean and crystalline but none of that prepared me for his Festival Hall performance. Those qualities were present in spades, but there was an added something. Call it the magic of theatre or the tangible engagement of an intensely listening audience, but this was a reading that added up to considerably more than the sum of its 32 parts.
