“Passion” is this year’s motto of the Autumn Gold Festival in Eisenstadt. And for violinist and festival director Julian Rachlin, passion is the solution to cracking Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” together with Sarah McElravy (viola) and Boris Andrianow (cello), which are actually a practice piece for piano.
In any case, in the middle of the Haydn Hall of Esterhazy Palace, melody and counterpoint were divided between three instruments and thus new possibilities for variation – a process that certainly carried the audience away and freed the work from the accusation that it was primarily a piece for the head.
“The ‘Goldberg Variations’ are our philosophy,” Rachlin said in his introduction. During the performance, the viola became the key to this interpretation of the work, initially supplementing the bass and finally becoming the permanent echo chamber of the violin and the melody. Bach became clearer in this production, sometimes even sweeter, which did not detract from this austere work. Three string instruments sometimes seem superior to the piano, in fact they have to decide more clearly when it comes to harmony – that was what made this performance so appealing.
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