Bach: Goldberg Variations – review

New recordings of the Goldberg Variations appear regularly, and my impression is that the majority of them are performed on a modern concert grand. Historically correct versions played on a harpsichord seem very much in the minority, but this account by Steven Devine, perhaps best known as the keyboard player and sometimes director of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, is scrupulous. Devine plays a modern two-manual harpsichord, but one that's modelled on an early 18th-century instrument; his playing is adroit and his attention to every detail of the ornamentation punctilious. What's lacking, especially in some of the more extrovert numbers, is physicality. Though the recording presents a close and clear sound, the listener is kept very much at arm's length; Devine steers well clear of the expressive extremes the variations offer, and even makes a break between the Quodlibet and the final reprise of the Aria, minimising any theatrical effect. It's a performance that surveys every detail, but never really finds the heart of this extraordinary work.