by Eve Rifkah

Worcester, MA, 19 November 2009.  Pianist Sarah Grunstein, member of the faculty of College of the Holy Cross, once again performed J. S. Bach’s “Aria mit verschieden Veränderungen fur Cembalo mit 2 Manualen” (Aria with diverse variations for double manual harpsicord), known as the “Goldberg Variations,” S. 988.  We denizens of Worcester can only hope this becomes an annual event.

In a city rich in pianists par excellence, Sarah Grunstein is la crème de la crème.  Grunstein’s masterful rendition of the Goldberg Variations held her audience in a sparkling web of enchantment.  Grunstein performed in Brooks Concert Hall, the former chapel with exquisite ceiling designs and lined with stained glass windows – a perfect environment for music of sweet simplicity cascading from soft to electric in nature.  Her eloquence, the crispness of each note, her total command of the range of tempos demanded by the Variations made music as holy as music gets.  I was transported beyond my hard seat into a realm of dream.  As the hold Glenn Gould maintained over this music has thankfully worn away over the past decade, a plethora of fine musicians has come to the fore; Grunstein is the shining light.

She began the evening with a brief verbal prelude explaining the music and the title. Quoting Bach’s biographer Forkel in his 1802 monograph: “It seems that Count Keyserlink in Dresden employed a young house-musician, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg.  The Count ‘was often unwell and had sleepless nights.  On these occasions, Goldberg had to spend the night in an adjoining room so that he could play to him during this sleeplessness.  The Count once remarked in Bach’s presence that he would very much like to have some keyboard pieces for his Goldberg, of a character so gentle and somewhat merry that he could be a little cheered up by them in his sleepless nights.’”  Whether the music was commissioned to soothe the nights of an insomniac patron or not, the soothing yet vibrant music has a firm place in Bach’s vast repertoire.  On this night Bach breathed through Grunstein’s hands with music of the spheres – the stars may have sung response as she pushed Bach’s dynamic range to the limit without violating the composer’s intent.  During one of the Variations I felt that I heard birdsong and would not have been surprised if birds had flown out from the lid of the piano.

The Goldberg Variations were published in 1741 as Volume 4 of Bach’s ClavierÜbung, a book of keyboard practice, consisting of an Aria plus 30 variations followed by a repeat of the Aria. In Grunstein’s introduction she spoke of the mathematical qualities of the music: “For Bach, the basis of his variations is the Aria’s bass line, consisting of 32 measures divided into two sections.  Each variation that follows contains this exact bass line and harmonic scheme, divided into 2 parts. Each has 32 or 16 measures”.  The repeat of the Aria lends a balance to the performance as a whole, a returning home.  As the last note drifted into silence, Grunstein’s hands hovered over the keys, the audience had stopped breathing, and would still be holding its collective breath if she had yet to drop her hands to her lap signaling the completion.  The trance broken, the audience rose en masse to its feet with shouts and applause.

The one flaw in the performance was not of Grunstein’s making – for a time a distant sound of music from elsewhere in the building especially disturbed the silences between a few of the variations.  At one point Grunstein seemed irritated, holding one pause longer than others.  I wondered if she would stop there; instead, she mastered distraction as  well as composition, holding both her own and her audience’s focus on the music at hand.  Unfortunately, the blemish will remain in the video being filmed of the performance.

All this and free to the public, what more could one ask for?

Eve Rifkah is a professor at Fitchburg State College and a poet, with 2 books scheduled for publication in Spring 2010.