Late-night solo Bach has been a feature of the Proms season, and after Alina Ibragimova’s survey of the violin sonatas and partitas and with Yo-Yo Ma in the six cello suites still to come, the centrepiece of the miniseries was András Schiff’s performance of the Goldberg Variations.
Schiff has played the monumental work several times before in London, most memorably at the end of 2013 in an extraordinary Wigmore Hall recital that also included Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. But that occasion seemed light years away from this concert, in which Schiff was alone at the piano in the centre of the Albert Hall stage and a capacity audience remained silent and spellbound throughout the 70-minute piece.
In many ways a solo piano is better able to survive the Albert Hall’s muddling acoustics than a full orchestra, with its multiple lines and textures. Schiff had written beforehand about his sparing use of the sustaining pedal in the Goldberg, and the piano he was using had a relatively dry and analytical sound, but some passages still remained congested, with contrapuntal lines that refused to resolve. There were other variations, too, in which the ornaments that he added tended to obscure the sharp rhythmic profiles, so that they did not move as smoothly and athletically as they might.
The rest, though, was totally compelling. Schiff’s command and awareness of the smaller-scale architectures were just as impressive as his mastery of the whole 30-variation span; the way in which he sometimes led from one variation to the next, or prepared for a moment like the final plunge into the minor key for the passion aria-like 25th variation, was just as impressive as the sheer buoyancy and dazzling evenness of so much of his playing. His view of the whole set may still seem more austere than many interpreters’, but its cogency and integrity are peerless.
• Available on BBC iPlayer until 21 September, and broadcast on BBC4 on 3 September. The Proms continue until 12 September.
