J.S. Bach: The Goldberg Variations | Víkingur Ólafsson, piano. February 17, 2025, Koerner Hall. Repeats tonight; tickets here.
“Nobody needs to apologise for the Goldberg Variations,” said Icelandic star pianist Víkingur Ólafsson as he picked up the microphone at the end of his concert to address an overwhelmingly enthusiastic audience. He’d found out less than 24 hours beforehand that his superstar piano partner, Yuja Wang, had taken ill and was unable to make it to Toronto for their sold-out two-piano recital.
“But at least I know this work a bit,” Ólafsson continued jokingly. As he omitted saying, he’d just won a Grammy for his DG recording. This widely acclaimed release was accompanied by an 88-country (the same number as the keys of the modern piano) world tour, which also included Toronto almost exactly a year ago in the same hall for a sold-out concert. So, this replacement concert became a golden ticket for those who, like me, had missed out on that event. If Glenn Gould’s twin peaks, especially the earlier 1955 disc, were Goldbergs for the 20th century, Ólafsson’s is the one for the 21st.
Time will tell, but I won’t be surprised if, as with Gould, he becomes the benchmark against which all new interpretations of this cathedral of music will be measured, at least for the foreseeable future.
Ólafsson himself has admitted that his earliest influence for the Goldbergs came from Gould’s 1955 recording, which allows each variation to unfold as individually as (he feels) the music dictates. That is very much Ólafsson’s own approach, which is filled with unexpected turns and endless inventiveness, each variation thoughtfully shaped and characterised while still being part of a single journey: from the innocence of the Aria, through the experience of its prodigal variants, to the melancholic farewell of its return.
The Concert
In Ólafsson’s hands the Aria is sublime in its intimate, heavenly poetry, and even more hushed in its repeats. The first variation bursts in with a flood of light and an explosion of energy. The quietude of the Aria returns in Variation 15 (the heart of the work), and then again, in much more complex and tragic spirit in No. 25 (the ‘Black Pearl’, as Wanda Landowska famously characterised it).
Just as striking is the orchestral approach to texture and voicing, especially as Ólafsson brings out new, unexpected layers and patterns in the repeats. Even so, nothing is routine, and as astonishing as his fluency may be, nothing ever descends into gimmickry or showmanship. It is the music itself that dictates its constant renewal, and it is the pianist who channels it: here hypnotically, there mischievously, and everywhere poetically.
All this is accompanied by spellbinding virtuosity, especially breathtaking in the variations originally designed for a two-keyboard instrument.
The deceptive sense of spontaneity hides a clear vision and dramatic direction, particularly impressive as the score gives only scant indications of tempo or dynamics. Ólafsson creates an organic structure in which he groups some of the variations, such as Nos. 3, 4, and 5, together; subtle premonitions emerge, as in the slight moments of hesitancy in Variation 24, which unobtrusively prepare for the Adagio of No. 25; after others, resonance rings on, as if allowing for the next Variation to form in the mind.
Pedalling was remarkably subtle, and especially effective in the transition from the Quodlibet Variation 30 back to the Aria, leaving a single note hanging, from which the Aria timidly emerges, almost like an echo. Music continues through pauses and silences; we are just no longer ‘with it’, as the pianist has said elsewhere.
Ólafsson dedicated his concert to those caught in the Toronto plane crash. “I was thinking of them as I was playing; thinking how lucky we all are, and how fragile life is,” he told his audience, as he bowed out modestly.
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