Trevor Pinnock and RAM - Bach: Goldberg Variations - The Scotsman

Who was Jósef Koffler? In the sleeve notes to this enticing recording by the Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble under Trevor Pinnock, dedicated to Koffler’s 1930s chamber orchestration of Bach’s monumental Goldberg Variations, we learn of his progressiveness as a composer and his tragic fate as a Polish Jew under Stalinist, then Nazi, rule. Known to Berg and Schoenberg, he was in tune with serialism in its infancy, holding the unique position of professor of harmony and atonal composition at the Lwów Conservatoire. Under pressure to avoid anti-Soviet “formalism,” he found a politically safer outlet in such curiosities as this Bach adaptation. The result is “of its time” - a somewhat fanciful recolouring of Bach’s ingenious keyboard variations so skilfully and pleasurably done, however, that - ignoring the performance practices we know of today - the outcome is compelling. Pinnock avoids sentimentality by demanding keenness of texture and springlike rhythm and energy.