Its a huge piece, she says. Its like an epic poem written for piano, or for keyboard, rather. Its a piece thats able to marry a profound sense of architecture and structure and just unbelievable compositional technique with incredible depth. Its not just about being dumbfounded about how he was able to compose this piece; I mean, the patterns in terms of the canons and the mathematical structure of each variation and how those variations fit together into the set of the thirty variations, its just stunning. Its not just about that. You dont even need to know that, in a way, in order to appreciate the music and how profound it is.
Dinnersteins take on Bachs Goldberg Variations has evolved somewhat since the debut album (she recently signed with Sony Classical and will record an all-Bach album in June) because shes played it live so many times. I think the thing thats happened to me so far is I have a great sense of spaciousness when I play it in terms of giving it the time to breathe in performance, she says. So I think I take more time both in between the notes and in between the variations.
Dinnerstein will perform Goldberg Variations at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 20, at Gates Concert Hall at the Newman Center, 2344 East Iliff Avenue. Tickets are $11 to $27.50; for more information, call 303-871-7720.
Thu., May 20, 7:30 p.m., 2010