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Horological Meandering

Talking about Bach's

 

Well-Tempered Clavier and Goldberg Variations, I must confess they are among my most cherished music. I am glad to find that here in this wonderful forum we are not only connected by great watches, but also by great music.

My favorite WTC recordings are Landowska for harpsichord and Tureck for piano, both recorded in 1950s.

I am very much attached to Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of Goldberg Variations, as it was the first Goldberg that I listened to. Over the years I accumulated more than a dozen of Goldberg CDs; it turns out the one that I have spent most time with is Pierre Hantai's 1993 recording (CD available from Opus 111 and later also released by Naive). Like Hantai, Keith Jarrett also recorded Goldberg in harpsichord (ECM 1989). His performance is marvelous and very engaging. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who wants to listen to Goldberg played by harpsichord for the first time. On piano, my favorite is again Rosalyn Tureck. She recorded Goldberg a number of times. All were well done. My heart goes with her later and probably the most famous 1999 DG recording.


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