Favorites: Nicholas Collon

The piece I couldn’t live without would probably be by J.S. Bach, and it would probably be the Goldberg Variations, which was written for the harpsichord.   I mean, it’s a great package, isn’t it?  It starts off with an aria which then goes through 30 variations before returning to where it began. It marries the intellectual and the varied and the aesthetically beautiful. It’s just perfect. It’s intellectually crafted in terms of the counterpoint – the canons and fugues, but it can be appreciated on an entirely unintellectual level. You can just listen to the different variations and understand what Bach’s trying to get across with each one by the way he colors the baseline; the mood, the atmosphere, and it’s just perfectly formed, the structure of it is so perfect.

I grew up on the Rosalyn Tureck CD, but I’ve really enjoyed listening to Vikingur Ólafsson’s recent recording, which he plays on the piano and is astonishing. The best interpretations are when the performer doesn’t intervene too much, when it’s not overly romanticized (I’m not a Glenn Gould fan; I can’t stand it, to be honest). Tureck sort of did that in her own way, but what’s brilliant about Ólafsson is the color, touch and virtuosity he brings to the piece without sentimentalizing it. There are so many recordings of this work, and there’s always a danger of wanting to do something completely different, which is not always the best way to approach things.

J.S. BACH: Goldberg Variations BWV 988, Vikingur Ólafsson – Deutsche Grammophon (DG), 2023