The Whole Music Experience

Murray Perahia Bach Goldberg Variations Sony I feel too exhausted at the moment to write an actual review of Pianist Murray Perahia's gorgeous interpretation of Bach's Goldberg Variations. However, Perahia takes his listeners through a vast palette of emotions with aplomb while performing the short 32 variations--a Bach masterpiece that was originally composed for his "talented protege Johann Gottlieb Goldberg to play on harpsicord." The first recording I heard and enjoyed of the variations was by the late Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. Listening to two recordings by Glenn Gould, recorded decades a part, led me to think that I would not enjoy another pianist's recording of this work. However, I find Perahia's version (who has a lot of Bach recordings under his belt), extremely moving and powerful. I borrowed the CD from the library down the street and have listened to several times in the past week. Since this is a healing music site, I want to add ...

Murray Perahia Bach Partitas 2, 3 & 4 Sony Classical It has been over a decade ago when I ran into an old friend that mentioned he was into Bach. I found that friend pretentious at the time and did not listen to any Bach myself. I did not think that I would understand it since most people that I knew that listened to Bach were academic or they were classically-trained musicians. Then after I started using different types of alternative healing, one of the modalities that I discovered was healing with music. Classical music came up a lot and so did the musical architecture of Bach's compositions. But the real clincher came much earlier when I had heard Glenn Gould performing various Bach compositions. Then I too could see the aesthetic and healing values of Bach. I would imagine listening to Bach everyday for at least an hour would lighten my moods, boost my immune system and offer other positive health effects. (If only I would get around to launching that plan)....