PRESS REVIEWS
GOLDBERG VARIATIONS - DVD ARTHAUS
... for some years one among the most valued and original performance of J.S. Bach, Andrea Bacchetti faces the monumental
Goldberg Variations... The 30 Variations, together with the introductive and ending aria, are presented in more than 95
musical minutes in a linear way, by a particularly controlled sound, however rich of an intense lyricism. Bach's polyphony
is expressed by the precise and clean Bacchetti's touch so to seen of an extreme easiness of execution when, instead, we
know how difficult is the execution that only excellent players can perform and Andrea Bacchetti is one among these
privileged... Recording of excellent audio and video quality. We suggest the purchase of the precious DVD ...
DVD & MUSIC BOX - Bacchetti's precious DVD for ARTHAUS MUSIK
www.corrierebit.com - October 22nd, 2007 (Cesare Guzzardella)
... With two different recordings of the wonderful Goldberg Variations played by Andrea Bacchetti in this package, this is
something about which all Bach and piano fans can get a little excited.... Andrea Bacchetti is a serious performer in this
music, and while you can sense the joy and inspiration he finds in Bach, the exuberance is somehow always measured and
calculated, his approach lyrical rather than technically extrovert - his legato is truly marvellous. A cool customer, ther
is not a bottle of water or even a cloth for brow mopping in sight on the DVD. He chooses a heavily dotted rhythm in
variation 20, which while valid I still find a little odd, and there are some moments where, arguably, his approach to
ornamentation leans a little too heavily on the rhythmic cohesion of some passages. While his attention to detail and
intensity never lets up, Bacchetti does show he has a human side, and there are a very few places where the fingers don't
quite behave with mechanical perfection ...
Classical DVD & CD Reviews
www.musicweb-international.com - October 2007 (Dominy Clements)
... Sans abandonner sa fascination pour l'ornamentation chez Bach, Bacchetti aborde les Goldberg avec un toucher nettement
plus fin, qui lui permet de créer une dynamique à l'interieur des phrases, une dynamique qui n'a rien de factice ou de la
plaqué mais qui appartient à la respiration même de la musique ... Ce qui est audible (et visible dans ce DVD bien réalisé)
c'est la profonde immersion du pianiste dans l'univers de Bach et des Goldberg. Pour le coup, on a l'impression qu'il n'a
joué que cela toute sa vie et peut poser un regard libre et varié au goût du jour sur chaque recoin de phrase. ...
L'actualité CD, SACD & DVD classique
ClassicsToday France - October 2007 (Christophe Huss)
... his physical address of the keyboard reminds me of a recently seen DVD of Boris Berezovsky. His technique is exceedingly
clean in spite of the fact that he plays with a super-romantic approach with liberal use of the sustaining pedal. Bach's
polyphony is cristal clear. ... Technicallyyoung Andrea Bacchetti is above criticism. If I had to say whose technique his
most reminds me of, I'd say Murray Perahia, high praise indeed. ...
Classical - Two Performances of the Goldbergs by Pianist Andrea Bacchetti
www.amazon.co.uk - November 12th, 2007 (J. Scott Morrison)
... the responsibility that Bacchetti took in recording in a video his own performance is elegant... In this way the player
wanted to show also the critical side of the performance, the revelation of the score in something physical, that is not
only sound but that belongs - above all - to the one who plays it ...
Culture & Shows DVD - Bacchetti, a new Glenn Gould
il Cittadino - November 21st, 2007 (F.Fr)
... Bacchetti picks Gould's lessons up, with some interesting updates. At first, he doesn't not renounce to the timber and
dynamic possibilities of piano, for a plastic performance that is always absolutely subject to the realization of that
counterpoint, of that polyphony that Bacchetti feels as an extreme inner pleasure ...
CLASSICAL CDs - Andrea Bacchetti's "Variations"
BresciaOggi - November 27th, 2007 (Luigi Fertonani)
... Auch wenn man nicht einverstanden ist, dass Andrea Bacchetti sehr häufig das Pedal verswendet, so ist sein Stil doch
geshmeidig, kantabel in der Aria, swingend und fließend in den Allegro-Passagen und subtil in der Wahl extemporaler
Ornamentik. Andrea Bacchetti hat für sich die Poesie in den "Goldberg Variationen" deren Rhythmen in diesem
Film visuell reflektiert werden ...
Magazine Fuer Klavier und Fluegel - NEWS
Piano - nr. 6 November/Dicember 2007 (Hans-Dieter Grünefeld)
... a fresh, very original performance. We like the coarse grind sound, the clearness of the phrasing, the liveliness of
the ornamentation in a calm - but hysterical in its times - reading. Behind that surface we can see depth and authenticity
of thinking, even more than he can say by words in the (well made) documentary were he introduces these landmark stone of
music ...
Shows - MUSIC: Goldberg Variations
Corriere della Sera - December 3rd, 2007 (Enrico Girardi)
... that Bach that the Genoese player performs is wrapped in an aura of mystic meditation with slow and solemn rhythms of
the rite. We must not let the delicate touch, the little sound trick us: the sound, generally not - bound rather than
detached, and the timber of Fazioli Piano (Bacchetti's favorite one for his own Bach recordings). Let's not believe in
the several ornaments, added with much taste, in the repetitions of the refrains, just like the use of that time.
In reality this Bach leaves "philology" aside. This is a very "pianistic" Bach, with a phrasing that
is always held up by the pedal, by the soft and velvety touch, that is very different from the incisive and brilliant
touch that usually used to play Bach on piano... Bacchetti's performance, full in surprise and shades, it is convincing
in suggesting an ascensional pattern, an itinerarium in deum to use an expression of medieval mystics... Everything is
plunged in a thoughtful meditation, from virtuosic variations to pages of extraordinary emotional intensity ...
DVD Video - 5 Stars Discs of the Month
Musica - n.192 December 2007 / January 2008 (Luca Segalla)
FULL ARTICLE italian
... A DVD and a CD of great calibre. Andrea Bacchetti is a pianist whose propensity to the contemporary lets us have a
particular approaching to Bach. An analytical reading, that is an Enlightenment and bright one, of a great rigour and
at the same time veined with a controlled and bashful passionateness. His Bach is magnificent, especially in the CD.
But also the images that Arthaus Musik dedicates to the majestic mechanics of Fazioli piano are superb. ...
Classical
Elle - December 2007 (Elsa Airoldi)
... Bacchetti's arrival to Goldberg Variations was in the air. On the contrary, it was partly an obliged arrival, since
the past of the player, who is attracted by Bach's world presenting himself on video with enigmatic - counterpoint -
mystery Kantor masterpiece, without renouncing to the historic and timber weight of the piano, must not have been an easy
choice. But the result is worthy... A thoughtful performance, intense and calibrated on a variety of phrasing and touch -
timbre. Bacchetti plays with a stylized elegance, as usual, but he communicates both the pleasure of Bach play both the
density and coherence of writing, finding a performing line that does not look like the (allowed) models even demanding
a compelling personality. Director's contribute is sober, it respects the concentration that music asks for ...
CD Reviews - An almost obliged approach
Suonare - December 2007 (Angelo Foletto)
... Muy interesante edición la presente, ya que ofrece dos interpretationes de esta magna obra emenadas dal mismo artista.
Bacchetti tiene la obra dominada y meditada, es indudable. ... En esta interpretación - seria, equilibrada y respectuosa
con Bach - se atisba ya la propensión cantabile del italiano, adornando con trinos aquí y allá, y aplicando a su
interpretación una metódica muy bien maturada. ... En la que hace en la enero de este mismo año, 2007, en Savona, Bacchetti
está más lanzado, mas mediterráneo, aunque sin hacer transgresiones. Asi pues, buenas versiones y un experimento interesante
y muy agradable. ...
DVD Críticas de la A a la Z
Scherzo - n. 106, diciembre 2007 (José Antonio García)
... After the latest, excellent outcomes that Andrea Bacchetti achieved with his recording of English and French suites,
the young Italian pianist now faces one of the most difficult texts of keyboard Bach's work, and he does it with the
rather unusual publication of a CD and a DVD that bring two different performances of this masterpiece, a really guessed
formula ...
Piano
Classic Voice - December 2007 (Luca Chierici)
... Su versión se escucha con mayor placer ... afronta las variaciones de un modo que revela, sin embargo, un excelente
conocimento de la obra ... aunque su enfoque tiende siempre a la introversión ...
Discos de la A a la Z
Ritmo - dicembre 2007 (L.G.)
... the touch is particularly controlled and an hot sound comes out, an intense lyrical sound, that fits well to Bach's
music. The polyphony is limpid and precise, it is given with self-assurance by the player, so much to make very difficult
pages seem easy. The result is a deeply analytical and dazzling reading: his Bach is beautiful... This is the proof of his
vital power and performing freshness: he never gives anything as obvious, in a constant tension towards improvement and
perfection ...
Culture
La Provincia - January 8th, 2008 (al. ci.)
... The meaning of the phrasing, the articulation of the model and of counterpoint games, the very harmonic braveries
that here and there seem particularly "modern": everything is solved into an unitary and compact vision,
through a total control of sound matter... A meticulous care of sound, that does not live aside the most minute particular
- not a harpsichord sound, it's evident, but a "pianism" that is used to express with punctilious intelligence
"features and effects of «baroque» musical taste" ...
Discs and Books - Bacchetti for Bach
L'invito, nr.81 - January 2008 (Lorenzo Costa)
... Andrea Bacchetti is a passionate "dried" by the physical structure and by the touch on piano and also by his
stubborn willing to go to the essential. In Bach's Goldberg Variations, a masterpiece written to take to sleep a man who
needed it, we remain really awake with him, because the intellectual pleasure to understand the building growing up goes
together with the taste of the measured and calibrated sonorities and to the virtuosities in performing each variation.
There is, together with the CD, also a DVD, where Bacchetti explains what he thinks and wants in Bach, as is often usual
today. The disc is one of those we are afraid of suggesting and giving as a present, because "too classic" and
that - on the contrary - just for this reason can catch and convince ...
Classical - Bacchetti: a super-Bach for intellectual pleasure
Il Giornale - February 8th, 2008 (Lorenzo Arruga)
... Die Aria erzählt tatsächlich eine Geschichte, hat einen eigenen Atem. Die Variationen sind in Tempo und Dynamik
aufeinander abgestimmter, manche werden kraft - und schwungvoll vorgetragen ...
CD, DVD und Schallplatten-Kritiken
www.klassik.com - February 10th, 2008 (Prof. Dr. Michael Bordt)
... This double recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, to be seen or even simply to be listened to reflects with slight,
very interesting variations of pattern... Like true scholars initiated to the myth of the masterpiece. Bacchetti succeeds
in detaching his self with a personal individuality in the Olympus of counterpoint: he has the composure of the
harpsichordist, but the modern touch of piano. He plays suspended between the relationships of these two instruments,
offering - as time goes by - a real anthem of devotion to the beauty of both, a beauty that comes from the foreseeing - and
at the same ancient - Bach's writing. Rather than by the abstract contest of the forms, Bacchetti seems to be attracted by
this unpredictable metamorphosis of the instrument... Identified with calmness, through a choice of loving times, perfect
embellishments, and burnished sonority.
The CDs of "Il Sole"
Il Sole 24Ore - February 24th, 2008 (Carla Moreni)
Arthaus gives us here two performances of Bach's Goldberg Varations, recorded in different locations by the greatly
gifted Andrea Bacchetti, of whom we have heard little in UK. On the DVD he introduces the Goldberg and his own interpretation
of them with manic zest, spaking at a rate you wouldn't have thought possible, and getting ever faster. It may be best not
watch this first, for both performances are on the highest level, and it would be a great loss for any Bach-lover not to
listen to them ...
Performance (DVD & CD)
Presentation/Sound 
Performance (DVD & CD)
Presentation/Sound
DVD Reviews
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE - March 2008 (Michael Tanner)
... It's a meticulous, refined account, the warm yet articulate sound Bacchetti achieves on his Fazioli being absolutely at
one with the music in hand. I particulary enjoyed his Shiff-like sense of fantasy, more Italian whimsy than Germanic awestruck
reverence. Yet for all the excellence of this 2006 DVD version, the bonus CD is so vitally communicative as to make the earlier
version feel almost inflexible by comparison ...
Recent DVDs
International Record Review - March 2008 (Julian Haylock)
... A the beginning of the '90s the young Bacchetti got as a gift the recording of the Goldbergs made in 1955 by Gould; this
fact primed an enthusiasm that the Italian player realize only 15 years later when he felt he was ready ... "Study Bach
because everything comes from there", Luciano Berio exhorted him, and today Bacchetti's Bach flows "mystic and
reflective", but also brilliant in the most difficult steps. It's a Bach all brain and heart: on wings of instinct and
sensitiveness that have always distinguished Bacchetti ...
Booklet: Good / Italian - Artistic Technical
Booklet: Good / Italian - Artistic
Technical
Amadeus Choice
Amadeus - March 2008 (Massimo Rolando Zegna)
... Bach started from an elegant aria and then built 30 Variations. The Goldbergs are an absolute masterpiece and Bacchetti's
performance exalts with rigour and elegance the most extraordinary features: the sense of phrasing, the articulation of the
models and of the counterpoint games, everything is solved into an unitary and compact vision ...
Classical The masterpiece "Goldberg": Bacchetti wins the challenge
La Repubblica - March 28th, 2008 (Roberto Iovino)
... None of this, homever, should be taken as a critique of Bacchetti's actual reading of Bach's monumental score, witch, it
turns out, is quite thoughtfully, as opposed to mystically, communicated, and witch is delivered with conviction and executed
with faultless technical precision. I found it to be a highly convincing and engaging performance, on a par with the best piano
versions out there, among which I count Angela Hewitt's and András Schiff's ...
Departments - DVD Andrea Bacchetti: BACH Goldberg Variations on ARTHAUS
Fanfare Magazine - March/April 2008 (Jerry Dubins)
... Dans les Variations Goldberg, le jeu du pianiste italien Andrea Bacchetti est interiorisé, réflexif, peu contrasté. Il n'y a
pas de place ici pour l'ivresse digitale. Dominenr la clarté, la raison et la riguer, qui n'est pas forcément rigorisme. Les
tempos sont lents, méme dans les moments les plus virtuoses. Dans un courte mais intéressante présentation, le pianiste s'en
explique. A son avis, la tecnique ne peut que progresseren jouant les passages virtyoses lentement. Il trouve également qu'un
compositeur comme Chopin gagnerait à etre joué plus lentement. On ne saurait lui donnert tort sur ce point, meme s'il faut se
méfier des généralisations. Son Bach est bien sur aux antopodes du jeu sanguin et explosif de Nikolayeva, mais cette oivre
supporte les interprétation les plus opposées ...
le plaisir d'écouter - DVD
PIANISTE - Mars/Avril 2008 (Bertrand Boissard)
... I note a fantastic clarity in this performance that allows every detail to shine through. Bacchetti is very free with his
ornamentation and varies it considerably on each repeated section. Always tasteful and historically accurate, it pushes the
limit on just how much is necessary or desirable. He uses the pedal and dynamic shading in almost every phrase. ... I am
privileged to have several releases of the Goldberg Variations in my library. If pressed to select just one, I'd probably go
for Bacchetti. Includes two excellent, but different performances, and one is a gorgeous video presentation. I enjoyed his
ornamentations and felt a certain kinship with his more romantic interpretation ...
DVD Reviews
American Record Guide - March/April 2008 (Harrington)
... la interpretación se realiza desde una perspectiva netamente pianística ... estilísticamente Bacchetti parece aspirar
a una intemporalidad del mensaje bachiano que yanos fue apuntada por Gould en sus dos grabaciones en estudio de la obra ...
un Bach gouldiano, picado y enfermizamente polifónico, pero tampoco es un Bach romántico aunque, repetimos una vez más, su
sonido es brillantemente pianistico. Muy libre en el plano expressivo, esta interpretación es de una personalidad innegable
y merece escucharse con atención. ...
Reseñas DVD
CD Compact - Año XXII n. 219, Abril 2008 (Josep Pascual)
... Andrea Bacchetti presents Bach's Goldberg Variations in a sensitively photographed and beautifully engineered DVD
performance ... While Bacchetti can do detached and dry-point articulation to Gouldian specifications, he's more about
singing lines and warm sonorities ...
Reviews DVD
GRAMOPHONE - April 2008 (Jed Distler)
... I would gladly take his playing as being of a standard against which many can be judged. Bacchetti most certainly has
a sense of the continuity of the variations as a single work, rather than as a set of grand miniatures - his virtually
non-stop live performances stand as a witness to this. Re-visiting this Arthaus DVD/CD set as a valued part of my collection
rekindles the respect I have for this kind of musicianship ... ...
Classical CD Reviews
www.musicweb-international.com - April 2008 (Dominy Clements)
... Suas gravações, como as Seis Sonatas de Cherubini e das Obras para piano de Berio, por exemplo, também foram muito
elogiadas. Aqui, com grande competência e clareza de estilo, ele faz a gravação integral das 33 Variações Goldberg. O DVD,
além de conter a filmagem de seu recital, inclui explicações feitas pelo próprio Bacchetti, dando esclarecimentos em relação
a contexto e interpretação para situar melhor o ouvinte nesse complexo repertório. Destinada a ser uma obra de estudo, na
peça se encontram características fundamentais da escrita de Bach: arte e metiê, didática e criatividade. A caixa contém
também um CD áudio com aintegral das Variações ...
LANÇAMENTOS de CDs e DVDs
Concerto - n.138, Abril 2008 (newsroom)
... an emotional climax, with intensity of feeling ... This is a very fine account ...
Review
International Piano, www.pianostreet.com - May/June 2008 (Alan Torpe Albeson)
... A harmincegy éves müvész ura hangszerének: hangszinek, hangerök, hangsúlyok nem esetlegesen szólalnak meg a Fazioli
zongorán, alkalmazásuk érezhetöen elöre megfontolt. Az olasz zongoramüvészre ezentúl oda kell figyelni. ...
The thirty-one-year-old artist is the master of his instrument: timbres, volumes, accents do not appear on the Fazioli piano by chance, their use is noticeably premeditated. From now on, you have to pay attention to the Italian pianist
The thirty-one-year-old artist is the master of his instrument: timbres, volumes, accents do not appear on the Fazioli piano by chance, their use is noticeably premeditated. From now on, you have to pay attention to the Italian pianist
Klasszikus - Hanglemez/DVD
GRAMOFON (Hungary) - Június 2008 (VT)
... this exceptional release contains not one but two performances of the complete Goldberg Variations ... The tempi
in each performance are, on the whole, exceptionally leisurely, not to say slow; the treatment supremely, sometimes
ravishingly pianistic, and the overall effect almost hypnotic. Gould would have disparaged it all as sounding like a
Chopin nocturne. Not for the first time, he would have been wrong, not least because Gould didn't understand Chopin,
let alone his nocturnes. Yes, the sustaining pedal is much in evidence, but always, and appropriately, for colouration,
never as a substitute for finger legato, which Bacchetti conspicuously commands. There is not an unbeautiful note
from start to finish. ... Bacchetti's style is unconventional but never iconoclastic, as Gould often was. It marries
a profond musical instinct with a keen and well-informed intellect, and an approach to the instrument (in this case
a superb Fazioli) which makes many of his colleagues seem like crude beginners. ... He may thus never have the career
he so richly deserves, but deserve it hemost emphatically does ...
Records DVDs
PIANO MAGAZINE - July/August 2008 (Roger Phelps)
... Oportunidad de conocer y contemplar las virtudes de la digitación de Bacchetti, la clarísima articulación, el
enorme dominio técnico ... y también oportunidad de apreciar con la vista la finura de la escritura bachiana,
elegantemente compleja, exigente y ordenada, en ese lúcido misterio en el que la pulcra escritura y la perfección
formal devienen belleza intensa y radiante, mágicamente sencilla. ... El instrumento elegido, un Fazioli, tiene un
sonido bellísimo, grave y cálido, que fácilmente envuelve y seduce al oyente-espectador. Bacchetti por su parte se
muestra ágil y brillante, lleno de musicalidad, capaz de un exquisito refinamiento, luminoso, flexibile y expresivo. ...
Novedades DVD Orden y desmesura: la emoción en las Variaciones Goldberg
www.mundoclasico.com - 6 de auguste 2008 (Ignacio González Pintos)
... exceptional Andrea Bacchetti ... I am struck by his lithe expressively athletic playing. He throws most of the
ornaments in as improvisatory gestures and with a sense of joyous spontaneity, and his limpid touch creates gorgeous
legato in the instrument. Swiftly paced, and with each variation coming hot on the heels of the last, you are gripped
and held in a sense of organic flow which is irrepressible ...
Classical CD Reviews
www.musicweb-international.com - September 2008 (Dominy Clements)
... one of the most important and complicated texts elaborated by Bach for keyboard: in 1900 it attracted harpsichordists
and pianists who left the most different performances and Bacchetti's reading - of an elegant control in his studied piano
sonorities - can be taken even as an example the young, very mature player defends the big possibility of expression on
piano thanks to a freedom that is however rigorously controlled... Bacchetti twists, but he also makes it increase, in
the colour of the present sound field, the phantasmagorical polyphonic ideation and the lush eloquence of the page so
organically concealing with the (even tricky) resources of modern keyboard ...
DVD of the month
Suono - October 2008 (Umberto Padroni)
"Nobody who heard this Goldberg can't not feel happy"
DVD review - RECOMMENDED !!
The Record Geijutsu - October 2008 (newsroom)
... a solid, balanced, even moving vision. At first the excellent timber choice, that appeals to solid low frequencies and
shrill high frequencies, while a magnificent Fazioli piano is the accomplice, but also a careful and aimed use of the pedal.
Then we can't help remaining conquerer by the enthusiasm - yet always united to an extreme control and clearness of reading,
with which Bacchetti faces the score ...
Ancient music
The Journal of Music - November 2008 (Elisabetta Fava)
... Bacchetti offers an exquisite performance of Bach's thirty Goldberg Variations, capable of offering the ear sounds and
sensations full of atmosphere, producing great imaginative fantasy, digital force and polyphony. Through soft and luminous
sonorities, the DVD of the Goldberg Variations alternates - and at times intertwines - reason and passion in an exercise in
which technique gives shape and free rein to creativity ...
Interview
Rondo - January 2009 (Patrizia Spora)
FULL ARTICLE italian
... Even so, Andrea Bacchetti, the young italian who played the work on DVD (Arthaus) a couple of years ago, is even more
hypnotic, and I would advise anyone who listens to one of these discs to invest in the other, too, for there is no work
that is less exhaustible than this.
DVD reviews
BBC Music Magazine - March 2009 (Michael Tanner)
TOPANDREA BACCHETTI Official Web Site