Brooklyn-based pianist Beth Levin here offers a reading of Bach's  Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, that's greater than the sum of its parts.  This is not just a version of the Goldberg Variations on piano, but one  that unashamedly disregards its origins on the harpsichord, with  old-school heavy pedaling and other pianistic effects that would have  made Liszt proud. Levin applies the resources of her concert grand to the  differentiation of each individual variation, and even of passages  within variations, in ways of which Bach could never have dreamed. Each variation rests in its own world, with  long pauses on the final notes and in between. Her musings on the piano  are accompanied in the booklet by detailed blow-by-blow descriptions of  her interpretive and technical decisions, and the interpretations in  general run from heavily Romantic to downright extreme. It's not for  everybody, but there's something appealing about the performance, even  for those who would rather hear the Goldberg Variations on the  instrument for which they were written. Levin seems to be struggling  with the music in the best sense of the word, veering close to the edge  in the crossed-hand passages, striving for long arcs of poetic unity,  attempting to penetrate to the essence of the music in pianism and  prose. The Goldberg Variations are indeed extreme, and it was because Glenn Gould realized this that his recordings live on. Levin's interpretation, although quite dissimilar to Gould's,  has some of the same caution-to-the-winds quality. The engineering on  the disc is above average for the Centaur label.

by James Manheim