DVD & MUSIC BOX Bacchetti's precious DVD for ARTHAUS MUSIK
corrierebit.com - October 22nd, 2007 (Cesare Guzzardella)

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...

Classical DVD + cd Reviews
MusicWeb-International - October 2007 (Dominy Clements)

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 ...

L'actualité CD, SACD & DVD classique
ClassicsToday FRANCE - Octobre 2007 (Christophe Huss)

... 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. ...

Classical Two Performances of the Goldbergs by Pianist Andrea Bacchetti
amazon.co.uk - November 12th, 2007 (J. Scott Morrison)

... 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. ...

Culture & Shows DVD - Bacchetti, a new Glenn Gould
il Cittadino - November 21st, 2007 (F.Fr.)

... 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 ...

DISCS CLASSICAL Andrea Bacchetti's “"Variations”"
BresciaOggi - November 27th, 2007 (Luigi Fertonani)

... 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 ...

Magazine Fuer Klavier und Fluegel - NEWS
Piano - nr. 6 November/Dicember 2007 (Hans-Dieter Grünefeld)

... 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" entdeckt, deren Rhythmen in diesem Film visuell reflektiert werden.

Shows - MUSIC: Goldberg Variations
Corriere della Sera - December 3rd, 2007 (Enrico Girardi)

... 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.

DVD Video 5 Stars Discs of the Month
Musica - n.192 December 2007 / January 2008 (Luca Segalla)

... 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

Elle Classica
Elle - December 2007 (Elsa Airoldi)

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.

CD Reviews An almost obliged approach
Bach: Goldberg Variations - Andrea Bacchetti, piano - Arthaus DVD 2007
Suonare - December 2007 (Angelo Foletto)

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...

DVD Críticas de la A a la Z Bach: Variaciones Goldberg BWV988
Andrea Bacchetti, piano (dos interpretaciones) - Arthaus 101 447, 162'
Scherzo - n. 106 diciembre 2007 (José Antonio García)

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.

Piano by Luca Chierici
Bach: Goldberg Variations – Andrea Bacchetti, piano - DVD Art Haus Musik
Classic Voice - December 2007

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...

Discos de la A a la Z Bach: Variaciones Goldberg
Andrea Bacchetti, piano - DVD Arthaus 101 447 [ 1 cd + 1 dvd ]
Ritmo - dicembre 2007 (L.G.)

... Su versión se escucha con mayor placer ... afronte las variaciones de un modo que revela, sin embargo, un excelente conocimento de la obra ... aunque su enfoque tiende siempre a la introversión ...

Culture New / DVD
Bacchetti, valued and self-confident Bach's performer
La Provincia, Bergamo - January 8th, 2008 (al. ci.)

... 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.

Discs and Books Bacchetti for Bach
L'invito, Genoa - nr.81, January 2008 (Lorenzo Costa)

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 “pianismo” that is used to express with punctilious intelligence “features and effects of "baroque" musical taste”.

Classical Bacchetti: a super-Bach for intellectual pleasure
BACH, Goldberg Variations. CD & DVD (Arthaus)
Il Giornale - February 8th, 2008 (Lorenzo Arruga)

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.

CD, DVD und Schallplatten-Kritiken
klassik.com - February 10th, 2008 (Prof. Dr. Michael Bordt)

... der Variationen unvermindert ist. Die Aria erzält tatsächlich eine Geschichte, hat einen eigenen Atem. Die Variationen sind in Tempo und Dynamik aufeinander abgestimmter. Manche werden kraft - und schwungvoll vorgetragen. ...

I dischi del Sole Bach. "Goldberg Variations BWV 988"
Il Sole-24 Ore - February 24th, 2008 (Carla Moreni)

... 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.

DVD Reviews J.S.Bach, Goldberg Variations
Andrea Bacchetti offers revelatory renditions of Bach's Goldberg Variations
Arthaus 101447 plus CD
Performance (DVD & CD) Presentation/Sound
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE - March 2008 (Michael Tanner)

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. The CD takes only 77 minutes - actually a very long time compared to the normally lenght of an hour or so. The DVD, recorded earlier, takes 97 minutes, making Bacchetti a Celibidache of the keyboard.
He uses a very soft-toned grand piano in each case, and avails himself of its full dynamic range, using both pedals freely. As he says, he likes to play the Goldbergs slowly, and when he isn't slow he still isn't fast. By the end of the DVD, I wished thet he had allowed the final four variations to gather monumentum as well as weight. Yet the overall impact of both these performances - for me, the CD is preferable - is so majestic and profound that it would be churlish to deny it greatness. In fact the recital is revelatory.

Recent DVDs J.S.Bach, Goldberg Variations
Andrea Bacchetti (piano) - Arthaus Musik 101 447, 1 hour 47 minutes
International Record Review - March 2008 (Julian Haylock)

... 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 ...

Amadeus Choice Bach, Goldberg Variations
Andrea Bacchetti / Gian Andrea Lodovici, Director - Arthaus Musik, 1 dvd + 1 cd
Booklet: Good / Italian - Artistic Technical
Amadeus - March 2008 (Massimo Rolando Zegna)

... 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 ...

Classical The masterpiece "Goldberg": Bacchetti wins the challenge
Goldberg Variations by Bach. Andrea Bacchetti soloist on piano. DVD and CD in a case Arthaus Musik
La Repubblica, Genoa - March 28th, 2008 (Roberto Iovino)

... 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.

Departments - DVD Andrea Bacchetti: BACH Goldberg Variations on ARTHAUS
Arthaus 101447 (DVD: 117:00) Live: Vicenza 2006
Fanfare Magazine - March/April 2008 (Jerry Dubins)

... 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 witch 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. ...

le plaisir d'écouter - DVD
PIANISTE - Mars/Avril 2008 (Bertrand Boissard)

Dans les Variations Goldberg, le jeu du pianiste italien Andrea Bacchetti est intériorisé, réflexif, peu contrasté. Il n'y a pas de place ici pour l'ivresse digitale. Dominent la clarté, la raison et la rigueur, qui n'est pas forcément rigorisme. ...

DVD Reviews BACH: Goldberg Variations
Andrea Bacchetti, p - ArtHaus [CD+DVD] 78 minutes + 84 minutes
American Record Guide - March/April 2008 (Harrington)

... I note a fantastic clarity in both performances that allows every detail to shine throught. 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 desiderable. He uses the pedal and dynamic shading in almost every phrase. Two excellent, but different performances. I enjoyed his ornamentations and felt a certain kinship with his more romantic interpretation. ...

Reseñas DVD Bach, J.S.: Variaciones Goldberg
Andrea Bacchetti, piano - ArtHaus Musik 101 447 DVD + CD
CD Compact - Año XXII n. 219, Abril 2008 (Josep Pascual)

... 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. ...

Reviews DVD Bach, Goldberg Variations
Andrea Bacchetti (pf) - Arthaus Musik 101 447
GRAMOPHONE - April 2008 (Jed Distler)

... 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. ...

Classical CD Reviews
MusicWeb-International - April 2008 (Dominy Clements)

... The last set of Goldbergs I looked at where by played by Andrea Bacchetti, and while I do not see his sometimes ornament-heavy recordings as in any way definitive. 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.

LANÇAMENTOS de CDs e DVDs
Goldberg Variations. Interpretação de Andrea Bacchetti
Concerto São Paulo - n.138 Abril 2008

Nascido na Itália, em 1977, Bacchetti fez sua estréia aos onze anos com o conjunto I Solisti Veneti. A partir daí começou uma carreira pautada, alem do estudo contínuo, por numerosos concertos como solista em Festivais e renomados teatros. 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. ...

Review DVD Bach's Goldberg Variations BWV 988
International Piano - May/June 2008 - pianostreet.com (Alan Torpe Albeson)

... an emotional climax, with intensity of feeling ... This is a very fine account ...

Klasszikus Hanglemez/DVD
BACH: Goldberg-Variaciók - Andrea Bacchetti, zongora
GRAMOFON (Polska) - 6/2008 (VT)

... Viszont ennek az erénynek a többszólamúság, a mü gazdag polifóniája látja kárát. 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.

Records DVDs Bach: The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988
Played and introduced by Andrea Bacchetti
PIANO MAGAZINE - July/August 2008 (Roger Phelps)

... 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.

Novedades DVD Orden y desmesura: la emoción en las Variaciones Goldberg
Bach, J.S.: Variaciones Goldberg - Andrea Bacchetti, piano - ArtHaus Musik 101 447 DVD + CD
www.mundoclasico.com - 6 de auguste 2008 (Ignacio González Pintos)

... 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. ...

Classical CD Reviews
MusicWeb-International - September 2008 (Dominy Clements)

... 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.

DVD of the month J.S. Bach - GOLDBERG VARIATIONS
"Goldberg like I do it" Andrea Bacchetti, piano. DDVD and CD in a case Arthaus Musik
Suono - October 2008 (Umberto Padroni)

... 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.

Ancient music Bacchetti Variations
J.S. Bach, Goldberg Variations BWV 988 - Bacchetti, piano - Arthaus Musik 101447 (1 CD + 1 DVD)
Il giornale della Musica - November 2008 (Elisabetta Fava)

...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.