While not having heard Tureck's new Goldberg Variations, I have read a
number of reviews of them which said how clear and heavy and earnest they
are.  All this seems to indicate that her playing may have somehow changed
over the years.  All that I have ever heard of her is an earlier Bach
partita (1950's) which was broadcast over the radio as part of her Philips
Great PIanists disc.  I didn't mind so much that it tended to be slow, but
it turned out not to be severe and heavily staccato at all, but sort of
feathery and mooning.  I thought it was all very spineless and without
direction:  she never seemed to rise above mf, adn I missed the rhythmic
vitality and drive that I was expecting in the dances.  And she didn't vary
her inflections or ornaments in the repeats!!  Give me Angela Hewitt any
day.

Is this a just view of her earlier style, or was the partita a dud - it
may also have been the recording quality? She seems very much to divide
opinions:  I have heard several people regard her (earlier) G.  variations
as one of their desert island discs, whereas my piano tutor heard her do
the variations twice in one recital in the '70s - once on pianoforte, once
on harpsichord - slow, with all repeats taken and taken identically.  She
couldn't stand it.

Felix Delbruck
[log in to unmask]