Auvidis/Astree has been releasing at mid-price some of their excellent
catalog items.  One such recording is Blandine Verlet's version of Bach's
Goldberg Variations, recorded in 1993.

One thing about the reissue I admire is the fine packaging and full booklet
notes.  There's even a cover which you can keep or discard depending on how
cramped you are for space.

Verlet's performance is very good, although I did have a few problems with
it.  The inital aria sounds like Verlet had to catch a fast moving train,
but she couldn't run at a consistent pace - too fussy.  Things improve
thereafter.  Her subsequent speeds are moderate, even a little slow at
times.  I do wish she had done a better job with the flow of the work, and
I didn't care for some of her note emphasis decisions.  There were many
times when I wanted a strong emphasis on a particular note, and Verlet
didn't provide it.  I thought she knew what I wanted.

Anything good to say? Well, I'm nitpicking quite a bit.  I'm using Hantai,
Tipo, Rousset, and a few others as references.  That's tough competition.
The Astree recording is excellent, but not in any way possessing subtlety.
That's probably good since Verlet possesses none either, except in the
final "repeat" where she takes a 360 degree turn and provides all the
subtlety you could want.  She sounded like Tureck at that point - that's
good.

I think I may have become too particular concerning this work.  That's the
danger of intimate familiarlarity and purchase of many versions - standards
get somewhat unreasonable.

Overall, I think the Verlet, at mid-price, is an excellent choice for those
with at least a few versions, even though I've been taking some jabs at it.
I'll likely keep Verlet in my cd-rom for a few weeks.  I've been finding
that playing a particular disc continuously for some weeks while at the
computer yields an interesting result: no matter what I initially thought
of the music, I eventually am converted.  This just happened with the Le
Roux harpsichord disc on Harmonia Mundi.  My initial reaction was, "why
would anyone want to perform this guy's music?" Now, after dozens of
listenings, I think it's great stuff.  I find myself humming it at work.
On to Stockhausen!

It's time for one of my extraneous paragraphs.  I had made a big deal
out of my resolve to finally get my cd collection into a well-regimented
storage system.  A funny thing happened when I completed this task.  I
started feeling very sad that I knew exactly what was in each drawer and on
each shelf.  My old feelings of surprise and anticipation entirely left me
and were replaced with a feeling of boredom and the routine.  So, I removed
every single cd and just spread them around the house in a random order.
Then, I re-stacked them all, again in random order.  I feel good now.

I should have listened to my wife.  I had told her of my resolve, and she
said, "you'll finish it but you won't keep it." My response was, "why do
you say that?" Her reply was, "it's not you, and you never keep anything
that's not you." I said, "watch me." Fortunately, she was out of town when
I undid it all; my home looked like Sound Warehouse on a bad day.  One
thing's for sure.  It takes much less time to scramble your collection than
categorize it.  I need to keep remembering that I'm a spontaneous guy who
likes to use the "shuffle" button on the cd player.  Why bother going to a
gambling casino when you can invite folks over and shuffle their money into
your pocket? Also, there's no classical music at the casinos, and New
Mexico is loaded with Native American owned casinos.  In this State, only
Native American tribes and Pueblos are authorized to suck up the coins.

Don Satz
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