Andrea Bacchetti Official Web Site

Back in 2004 - Fanfare 28:2 to be precise - I reviewed a DVD similar in format to this one, albeit with a different artist playing a work by a different composer. Then, it was Piotr Anderszewski in Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, a production in which the pianist presented a fascinating lecture on the work itself, its structural underpinnings, and its intricate motivic relationships. Here it is Andrea Bacchetti, blathering on for 10 minutes about himself, how he came to Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and the deep satisfaction that playing the piece brings him. At one point we learn that he chooses to play the piece as “mystically and thoughtfully” as he can, which strikes me as a contradiction in terms; but perhaps something was lost in the Italian to English translation. At another point, Bacchetti tells us that playing the piece transports him into a state of bliss. Not to put to fine a point to it, but better he should transport the listener into a state of bliss.
All of this is preamble to a filmed performance in a beautiful drawing room at the Villa Trissino Marzotto, recorded in 2006. There is something anachronistic about seeing a nine-foot Fazioli concert grand in a setting that virtually dwarfs its surroundings, especially following Bacchetti’s little autobiographical sketch in which he speaks of some of the difficulties posed by fingering techniques that were originally conceived for the harpsichord.
None of this, however, should be taken as a critique of Bacchetti’s actual reading of Bach’s monumental score, which, it turns out, is quite thoughtfully, as opposed to mystically, communicated, and which 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. Having the complete piece on DVD in combined audio and video format, I’m not sure what purpose the bonus CD serves. It’s simply an audio-only version of the same music on the DVD [but a different performance]. Even with the DVD by itself, you could achieve the same result by killing the picture. But it’s a freebie, so why look a gift horse in the mouth? One last thing I should mention. The two discs come locked - and when I say locked, I mean locked, as in these puppies ain’t comin’ out - in a tandem arrangement I’ve not encountered before. I struggled mightily to release them from their vise-like grip, pulling and prying to no avail. I was just about ready to get out the pliers and rip the whole case apart, when I spied two clear plastic tabs with the almost invisible words “Push” embossed on them in the same clear plastic lettering as the tabs themselves. Even for those with still reasonably good eyesight, this is a terrible idea. I can see many frustrated folks destroying the entire plastic casing, as I came close to doing, to get at the discs. Jerry Dubins