J.S.バッハ: ゴルトベルク変奏曲＜アナログLP限定盤＞

パッパーノ指揮サンタ・チェチーリア国立アカデミー管弦楽団とのチャイコフスキーとプロコフィエフの協奏曲で華々しく、ワーナークラシックス・レーベルよりデビューした、ラナの録音第2作となった「ゴルトベルク変奏曲」。20代の有望なピアニストがひしめく中、最も注目すべきピアニストとしての存在を印象付けるにふさわしいバッハの大作。繊細な主題のアリア、鮮やかでアグレッシブ、リリカルさ、小気味よく、考え抜かれたリズムの崩しが、「バロック+モダン・ピアノ」という最先端の演奏、として高い評価を得ており、世界的ベストセラー盤となっています。このアルバムが、待望の2枚組180gアナログ盤として限定発売となります。
ワーナーミュージック・ジャパン

This was the second release by Italian pianist Beatrice Rana, who was in her early twenties when she recorded it in Berlin in 2016. A prodigy who was taking home top prizes as a high school student, Rana certainly gave herself the chance to fail spectacularly when she decided to record the Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, of Bach, a gigantic work susceptible to multiple interpretations that poses challenges in terms of technical skill, cohesiveness, and overall spiritual grasp. Instead, Rana notches a substantial success and bears out the predictions of those who have been touting her as a major star. She thinks out her own interpretation of the work and carries it through, not relying on established schools. Rana overlays her own division upon the work's tripartite structure (with sets of three variations each capped by a canon), juxtaposing rhythmically free slower movements (which she makes quite expressive without having to take the big ones too slowly) with crisp, tough, contrapuntal movements that approach Glenn Gould territory. Sample the eighth variation for an idea of the Chopinesque treatment Rana gives the slower variations, bringing out the considerable chromaticism in the part-writing and generally expanding the scope of the work as a whole. The set follows a clear overall trajectory (this is often the bugaboo for pianists who take it on too early), and the reprise of the "Aria" at the end seems to take on a meditative, retrospective quality shaped by everything the theme has been through. Again, it hardly sounds like the work of a youthful pianist, and the entire performance is absorbing. Rana receives excellent support from Warner Brothers' engineering staff, working at Berlin's Teldex studios.