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Mahan Esfahani

Bach - Goldberg Variations

Deutsche Grammophon
Release Date: August 26, 2016

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Mahan Esfahani - Bach: Goldberg Variations (Trailer)
Mahan Esfahani: Bach: Goldberg Variations - Medly
Wigmore Hall presents Mahan Esfahani
1 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Aria  
2 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 1. a 1 Clav.  
3 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 2. a 1 Clav.  
4 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 3. Canone all'Unisono  
5 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 4. a 1 Clav.  
6 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 5. a 1 o vero 2 Clav.  
7 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 6. Canone alla Seconda.  
8 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 7. a 1 o vero 2 Clav. al tempo di Giga  
9 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 8. a 2 Clav.  
10 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 9. Canone alla Terza. a 1 Clav.  
11 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 10. Fughetta. a 1 Clav.  
12 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 11. a 2 Clav.  
13 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 12. a 1 Clav. Canone alla Quarta  
14 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 13. a 2 Clav.  
15 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 14. a 2 Clav.  
16 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 15. Canone alla Quinta.  
17 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 16. Ouverture. a 1 Clav.  
18 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 17. a 2 Clav.  
19 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 18. Canone alla Sesta. a 1 Clav.  
20 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 19. a 1 Clav.  
21 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 20. a 1 Clav.  
22 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 21. Canone alla Settima  
23 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 22. a 1 Clav. alla breve  
24 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 23. a 2 Clav.  
25 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 24. Canone all'Ottava. a 1 Clav.  
26 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 25. a 2 Clav.: Adagio  
27 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 26. a 2 Clav.  
28 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 27. Canone alla Nona. a 2 Clav.  
29 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 28. a 2 Clav.  
30 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 29. a 1 o vero 2 Clav.  
31 Bach: Goldberg Variations - Variation 30. a 1 Clav. Quodlibet  
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Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani Records Bach's Goldberg Variations for Deutsche Grammophon

Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani approaches one of the greatest works of the Baroque repertoire with fresh eyes: Bach's incomparable Goldberg Variations.  Following the success of his DG debut album, Time Present Time Past, Esfahani returns to the baroque and records one of the keyboard's undisputed masterpieces.  The album will be released on August 26, 2016.

Not only are the Goldberg Variations recognized for their genius, they are also surrounded by a number of stories.  Esfahani says, "I haven't the foggiest notion of what Bach's "Goldberg" Variations "are" and I find most of the cosmological and numerological chatter around them to be tremendously irritating, but I cannot deny that I find a great deal of narrative and life beyond the score when I play them. Coming in the last decade of the composer's life, they offer us a view both of someone looking back on his decades-long aesthetic transformation and of an innovative and sensitive musician responding to new trends and techniques around him."

Esfahani returns to the US on October 6, 2016, for a concert with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and again in March 2017 for recitals in Princeton, New York and Durham.

Of Esfahani's DG debut album, Time Present Time Past, the New York Times said, "A model recording for any instrument, not just the harpsichord ... Exhaustingly brilliant."

  • Mahan Esfahani's Lammermuir festival programme takes the harpischord into the 21st century / The Guardian
    Posted At: September 13, 2023
    Since making his London debut in 2009, Mahan Esfahani has established himself as the first harpsichordist in a generation whose work spans virtually all the areas of classical music-making from critically-acclaimed performances and recordings of the standard repertoire to working with the leading composers of the day to pioneering concerto appearances with major symphony orchestras on four continents. He wa...

  • More glittering Bach virtuosity from Mahan Esfahani / The Guardian
    Posted At: August 27, 2022
    Since making his London debut in 2009, Mahan Esfahani has established himself as the first harpsichordist in a generation whose work spans virtually all the areas of classical music-making from critically-acclaimed performances and recordings of the standard repertoire to working with the leading composers of the day to pioneering concerto appearances with major symphony orchestras on four continents. He wa...

  • Jean Rondeau and Mahan Esfahani hip up the harpsichord / The New Yorker
    Posted At: May 15, 2018

    If you know Bach's Goldberg Variations only through the eternally best-selling recordings by Glenn Gould, you have not really heard the work. Gould was a brilliant but idiosyncratic player whose approach to Bach might be compared to Laurence Olivier's renditions of Shakespeare: the art can obscure the matter. Furthermore, the Goldbergs drastically change character when they are transferred from the harps...

  • Mahan Esfahani reveals his meticulous approach to Bach, at Wigmore Hall / musicOMH.com
    Posted At: May 12, 2018

    This Wigmore Hall, London concert was the third in a planned series of sixteen, in which Mahan Esfahani will perform every piece that J. S. Bach wrote for the harpsichord, or for which a harpsichord version exists. The evening revealed excellent programming skills, but was ultimately made by the performer's ability to temper total mastery of his subject matter with a sense of artistic freedom. Every ...

  • Mahan Esfahani's Da Camera: Houston performance features harpsichord compositions from the Renaissance to Reich / Chron.com
    Posted At: December 20, 2017

    An instrument resembling an oddly ornate piano but producing a distinctly unique sound, the harpsichord was developed in the 15th century, and is Mahan Esfahani's instrument of choice. On Dec. 12, Esfahani performed the harpsichord at Da Camera in Houston. The show, entitled "From Renaissance to Reich," comprised compositions from various eras and genres, some written specifically for the harpsichord...

  • Mahan Esfahani nominated for 2017 Gramophone - Artist of the Year
    Posted At: June 16, 2017

    Once again, Gramophone is inviting its readers and visitors to vote for its new Artist of the Year. From a shortlist of 10, drawn up by the magazine's editors, readers are invited to vote. While Gramophone's panel of critics votes for the 12 record categories and Recording of the Year, since 2003 the Artist of the Year has been in the gift of our readers. Voting runs from June 16 to July 31 and the winne...

  • Mahan Esfahani, in Melbourne for Metropolis Festival, speaks with - ABC RN
    Posted At: May 7, 2017

    Mahan Esfahani has brought the harpsichord well and truly into the 21st century, playing Steve Reich and György Ligeti alongside Bach and Dowland. And it's got him into trouble. He has interesting things to say about musical 'insiders' and 'outsiders' and old guard European attitudes to musicians from Asia and the Middle East. Mahan is in Australia performing at Melbourne...

  • Mahan Esfahani joins APO for The Sorcerer's Apprentice at Auckland Town Hall / New Zealand Herald
    Posted At: March 26, 2017

    Iranian-American harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani joins the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in The Sorcerer's Apprentice at Auckland Town Hall, Thursday March 30. Esfahani joins the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra for its The Sorcerer's Apprentice where the orchestra goes Gallic with a programme of Ravel, Bizet and Dukas. He's the soloist in Poulenc's 1928 Concert Champetre. Concert Champetr...

  • Mahan Esfahani with a chip on his keyboard at 92nd Street Y / New York Times review
    Posted At: March 24, 2017

    Attitude may not be the trait you most expect to find in a harpsichordist. Yet the Iranian-born Mahan Esfahani, 32, often seems to be spoiling for a fight. He routinely challenges audiences with, say, half a program of more or less contemporary music, as he did in the small Buttenwieser Hall at the 92nd Street Y on Tuesday night. At every opportunity he bashes what he calls, in a program note, "the self-...

  • Mahan Esfahani leaves nothing to be desired at Princeton's McCarter Theatre / phindie review
    Posted At: March 22, 2017

    Internationally celebrated harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani appeared at the McCarter's intimate Berlind Theatre on Sunday afternoon, March 19. His recent recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations has garnered extraordinary praise. The Guardian writes of Mr. Esfahani's "piercing insights" into the music, while the august publication Gramophone calls this recording "remarkable," "provocative," and "bravura." Mr...

  • Mahan Esfahani plays Barbican - Milton Court with momentum and brilliance / theguardian
    Posted At: February 5, 2017

    In an all-Spanish programme at Barbican - Milton Court, soloist Mahan Esfahani negotiated the mood swings and disruptive rhythms of Francisco Coll's new harpsichord concerto. Coll's new concerto was written for Esfahani. With a solo part that's hyperactive in the outer movements, dark and inward in the central Lento, which is linked to the finale by the briefest of retrospective cadenzas, it has all the ...

  • Mahan Esfahani set to play all of Bach's solo harpsichord works at London's Wigmore Hall / theguardian
    Posted At: December 23, 2016

    Over the next few years, Mahan Esfahani is playing all of JS Bach's works for solo harpsichord at London's Wigmore Hall. He began his series at the very summit of Bach's achievements as a keyboard composer, devoting his first recital to the Goldberg Variations. Esfahani is on a self-appointed mission to re-establish the harpsichord in the concert hall, to take it out of an exclusively baroque niche, and ...

  • Mahan Esfahani - Bach: Goldberg Variations / Financial Times review
    Posted At: November 19, 2016

    After Murray Perahia's heartwarming recording of the French Suites on the piano, here is Mahan Esfahani putting in a swift rejoinder on behalf of the harpsichord in the Goldberg Variations. Under the close scrutiny of the microphone there is no need to worry about limitations in the instrument's scale or variety of colour. Esfahani makes the most of his harpsichord's range of timbres, embellishes re...

  • Mahan Esfahani set for San Francisco Performances / San Francisco Chronicle
    Posted At: October 7, 2016

    Plucky virtuoso Mahan Esfahani is seeking to change the perception that the harpsichord should not be associated with avant garde music. "I think that there's resistance from the people who have appointed themselves guardians of some sort of nebulous (and philosophically bankrupt) ‘historical performance' scene than there is from any member of the mainstream classical music public," Esfahani said, ...

  • Mahan Esfahani's Time Present & Time Past set for SF Performances / San Francisco Examiner
    Posted At: October 4, 2016

    Plucky virtuoso Mahan Esfahani is seeking to change the perception that the harpsichord should not be associated with avant garde music. "I think that there's resistance from the people who have appointed themselves guardians of some sort of nebulous (and philosophically bankrupt) ‘historical performance' scene than there is from any member of the mainstream classical music public," Esfahani said, ...

  • 5 star review from theguardian for Mahan Esfahani's Bach: Goldberg Variations
    Posted At: September 18, 2016

    Everyone wants to record Bach's Goldbergs, but not many show as much piercing insight as harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani. The surprises begin at once with a slightly simplified Aria and then some unusual tempi – the canons at the unison, third and octave are slow – and an unevenly tempered tuning for the harpsichord. Esfahani shows amazing rhythmic freedom at times, sometimes teasing us with a ...

  • Mahan Esfahani - Goldberg Variations on KUAF: Of Note
    Posted At: September 15, 2016

    "I haven't the foggiest notion of what Bach's 'Goldberg Variations' are, and I find most of the cosmological and numerological chatter around them to be tremendously irritating, but I cannot deny that I find a great deal of narrative and life beyond the score when I play them."  That's from the liner notes to a brand new recording of the towering work by harpsichordist Mahan Esfa...

  • Mahan Esfahani - Bach: Goldberg Variations / WFMT: Featured Release
    Posted At: August 26, 2016

    Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani approaches one of the greatest works of the Baroque repertoire with fresh eyes. Esfahani says, "Coming in the last decade of the composer's life, they offer us a view both of someone looking back on his decades-long aesthetic transformation and of an innovative and sensitive musician responding to new trends and techniques around him." For AUGUST 26, 2016, WFMT: Chicago ...

  • Mahan Esfahani - Time Present and Time Past / WFMT: New Release Of the Week
    Posted At: June 7, 2015

    "Time Present and Time Past" is an eclectic program fusing Baroque with Minimalism. Mahan Esfahani explores the relationship between two musical genres 300 years apart, emphasizing their similarities by playing all the pieces on period instruments. "This collection shows Esfahani at his vibrant and expressive best. Esfahani proves that his instrument doesn't exist merely for music of olden times." &ndash...
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