I am so addicted to the Goldberg variations (well, at least since I first heard Mr. Glenn Gould playing them) that I will never have enough of them, and I can listen to the variations in any rendition in a loop forever. However, this guitar rendition is superb. Exactly what Glenn Gould described as "A constant state of wonder". This rendition, apart from being technically impressive and musically engaging - it also teaches me YET AGAIN how little I know about these pieces.... and that the "stories" within them are simply endless. The emotional palette is unbounded, and the joy... oh the joy.... Thank you so much.
There is a version for string trio, with a young Mischa Maisky on the cello. The ligatto of the strings creates a very special effect. Look it up! And yes, this one is superb!
Wow. Thank you Lord for creating such a composer as J.S. Bach and such a `musician as Eötvös József for the interpretation of this heavenly music. Incredible.
Incredible. Golberg Variations it's, for me, the supreme instrumental work of all times. This guitar transcription and interpretation is astonishing. Congratulations from Argentina.
It's 1741. A bewigged German genius is completing a score with his quill. I travel back in time to tell him how much we're enjoying his stuff 281 later, and play him this recording (as I am hearing it now), on my Moto G8 Power stereo phone, and the tears roll down his powdered cheeks.
Bach: "Great! Do you have any future music on your phone? I'm thrilled to hear what great works your masters composed in the future!" - after listening to our contemporary shit for 8 seconds Bach falls from his chair, dead, bleeding from his ears.
Reminds me of Bill & Ted's introduction of Beethoven. "..his favorite works include Mozart's 'Requiem', Handel's 'Messiah'...and Bon Jovi's 'Slippery When Wet'.."
I have heard this music countless times, played on piano and harpsichord, but I have never appreciated it more than hearing it played on the guitar. Many, many thanks.
This level of talent never fails to startle me. Taking this cosmic masterpiece and transcribing the whole of it to an entirely different instrument, with not only no loss of content or "color", but somehow adding another dimension.
Yes - there's nothing lost, maybe even a gain from the intimacy of fingers directly on strings, thus bypassing any intermediate mechanism of instruments such as piano - or even clavichord (in which, or so I've read, the key touches the string directly). Bravo.
I'm not saying this as a joke, but bach always sounds good. you can change the instrument, the arrangement sometimes even the tempo but nothing. it is indestructible: it resists everything.
@@stefanozucchini2781 "it will resist everything" - I will remember that! A very interesting idea of Bach's... talent?.. profoundness?.. universality? Don't know how to put it. Bach is bigger than any words. Thanks!
Thank you, Mr Eötvös: An exalting and at the same time, humbling experience . . . Beauty that hits me and runs through me as if I'd stood in the way of a high-speed spirit train.
"He finally found peace, as so many others had done, in the abstract architecture of Bach, occasionally ornamented with Mozart. ... and as Discovery drove on towards Saturn, as often as not, She pulsated to the cool music of the harpsichord, the frozen thoughts of a brain which had been dust for twice one hundred years." - Arthur C. Clarke. (2001: A Space Odyssey.) Ready for you now, Sergeant Pembry. 😋
Quel extraordinaire talent ai-je découvert aujourd'hui ! Un toucher,une force et une légéreté impressionnantes sur une musique si magnifiquement respectée et si délicate à jouer sur une guitare !!! Je n'en reviens toujours pas ! Merci Monsieur !
Stupendous. Like I'm hearing them for the first time again. His musicality and coloring of the voices is incredible. Really enjoying the more leisurely tempi, also. And I'm a pianist admitting I might like these better on guitar!
@WATER-MAN I think you're being a little harsh....in transcriptions and arrangements, changes are always made. Even Bach and Mozart did that. I'm a conductor and have to do many operas in arrangements and transcriptions. Even Wagner asked Liszt to do the piano arrangement of the Ring, which he declined. Liszt recommended a friend of his (Klindworth) who was a student of Chopin for the job. The first version, which was as close to the orchestration was impossible to play, even for Liszt. He had to simplify it to make it playable. Look at Bach's many transcriptions for other instruments. Even Puccini commissioned simplifications of his orchestrations for smaller ensembles.
I am old but I studied guitar when young, I always say that guitar is second only to piano but I could not imagine that someone would have succeded in doing such an eccellent transcription of such a complex masterpiece!
As one who studied piano when young, and alas young no more - I wouldn't place the classical guitar second to anything, and I can't put the guitar and the piano on the same line - the differences leave much to be envied on both sides... Guitar offers hugely wider palette of colors tones timbres and directness - while piano can roll a real thunder and a split second afterwards resolve to rain-drops, while playing much richer polyphony. And... after we sorted these out... could we REALLY do without a violin? or recorder, or flute? I think we'd better move the crown to another instrument every time we're deeply moved by a new piece and rendition... let's keep it an open debate - forever.
Thankyou even when you think this Bach work couldn't get any better, suddenly along comes a guitar and you rediscover the piece all over again. Bach was foremost a teacher, and wrote in such a way, no matter where you were from could play and learn and enjoy his music on any instrument, still marvelling at the technique and skill needed.
Not sure which is more impressive - having the fortitude to transcribe the GV for solo guitar, or the skill and ability to play it. Reminds me of Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven's symphonies for solo piano. Some things are so monumental that when success is achieved, it's an achievement for all humanity. I think this is one.
Bach, the greatest of composers, defies versatility. Indeed, I have a dozen versions with different musical instruments, even the jazz with Jacques Loussier. It is worth collecting these various versions.
Si de por sí las Variaciones Goldberg son difíciles en el clave, ahora imagínate ejecutarlas en la guitarra. La transcrpción es bastante fiel y exacta. Muchas gracias por esta maravilla.
What a thrill to discover this amazing transcription of one of my favorite works. This made all the more satisfying given the ardent elan of the performance. Bravo!
Proof, if more was required, that Bach was better at music than anyone has ever been at anything. Thanks for your contribution Mr. Eotvos for a brilliant transcription and virtuoso performance.
Thank you for every note of this performance. Mr Bach has composed this amazing piece, but you give life the notes yourself. We listen to the music you served us and it is very good.
Mr. Evötös, you 'fretted' the keyboard. A monumental achievement to keep the polyphonic texture of this brilliant work. I'm all ears with my eyes closed, so was this auditory panacea for an insomniac? Kudos Sir!
Mint egy amerikai magyar 1957 ota, nagyon halasan koszonom az On egeszen csodalatos gitarra valo attirasat az isteni Bach Janos Sebestyen Goldberg Valtozatait. Nagyon buszke vagyok ra mint egy magyar, hogy mint egy fantasztikus magyar gitar muvesz ilyen kivano klasszikus zenevel bajolja el Bach imadoit vilagszerte. Eljen a magyar!
Eine wunderbare Interpretation, un'interpretazione angelica, niebiańska muzyka; cudowne wykonanie chwytające za serce i zniewalające ducha. Merci, Maestro. Grazie di tutto il cuore!!!❤
One of the joys of Bach is almost any of his ideas can work on almost any instrument w/ proper transcription. This performance is a particularly strong example. The strength of his melodic and harmonic conception was so deep that it separated from the instrumentation itself haha. Any sounding of his ideas, regardless of instrument, is hyper musical by dint of the ideas alone.
Most composers write music, in practice, for their preferred instrument no matter what instrument it is officially "for". (Mozart is the most notable exception, who truly wrote all of his pieces for the instrument that he said they were "for" -- there are singers who disagree, but that's because he didn't write his opera parts for the human voice, he wrote e.g. Sarastro's part for Franz Gerl's voice.) Bach was a violinist in his heart, even though the plurality of of his solo-instrument works are keyboard pieces. The progressions in his melodies are almost always better-suited to strings than they are to keyboards (both for fingering convenience -- his keyboard music is fiendishly difficult to play on a keyboard -- and for phrasing). Because of this, most of his non-keyboard pieces don't transcribe well to keyboard; but almost all of his keyboard pieces transcribe well to any instrument, since he never really made any concessions to the clavier; and they transcribe particularly well to stringed instruments because he was implicitly making concessions to stringed instruments even when he was technically writing for the clavier. Whereas, Beethoven was truly a pianist, and his symphonies transcribe to piano much better than Bach's chamber music transcribes to piano, but his piano music transcribes poorly to most other instruments.
@@afeller12 Very interesting! Thanks for your insights and I definitely agree. As an amateur pianist who's made the Goldberg variations a lifetime goal, I definitely get the fiendishness you speak of haha. I also couldn't agree more about Beethoven as fundamentally a pianist. It's amazing how true Liszt's transcriptions of his symphonies are to the spirit of the fully orchestrated performances. Very little feels "reduced" for the sake of solo performance! Rather one feels that a different perspective is gained of the "core" of the piece.
@@joy1ess Thanks for your reply - I actually stumbled across the guitar work by accident and just listened in a bit. Overdubbed, I'm quite sure... but that's not a problem at all. I don't see how it could be done any other way. However, I have received some opposition to my opinion here. And now your answer. I think I'll take the time to listen to it all carefully, esp. the aria. 👍 😃
Recently there are really few things to make us Hungarians proud of, but this achievement is amongst them. I have the double CD and no week would pass without listening to it.
Bellísima y espléndida versión de las Variaciones Goldberg. Siempre había querido escucharlas en versión cuerdas y aquí me he encontrado con tan grata e increíble interpretación. Gracias por ofrecerlo por este Canal.
I am kinda stunned that anyone could do this, as someone who plays a bit of guitar and piano and has played some of these pieces on the piano I just feel like moving it to the guitar must make it so hard,
That’s quite an accomplishment for you! The smile on your preview says it all. You must have felt like I did after I managed a first sight read of Carulli’s opus 121 and recording them all in four groups and getting it all up with my crappy phone before the day was out. (Felt Pretty good about things then)
![Goldberg Variations József Eötvös, guitar [FULL]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
