You can get Perahia's Goldberg Variations in a cheap 8 disc box set of all the Bach recordings he did for Sony, currently available for less than $30. It also has the English Suites, the Partitas, the keyboard concertos with the ASMF and a disc with the Italian Concerto, Brandenberg #5 and some other stuff.

No need to ask for our forbearance on this recent run of Dave's Faves. I'd say it's pretty clear that these are some of the most popular, most thoroughly engaging videos in your whole immensely engaging series. Not only do they give us a peek at your private listening pleasures, but they manage to amp up (if that's possible) the enthusiasm factor of your regular videos! It's just exhilarating to witness you talking with such obvious joy about performances that are so meaningful, so essential to you. It's something we can all connect with too: I'm sure we all have recordings we feel we wouldn't want to live without, and there's probably a natural curiosity about what those must-haves are for other folks. So keep on building up that Dave's Faves playlist and know we're eager for each new revelation from the shelves of Brooklyn or the Overflow Room.

Glenn Gould's mumbling and humming notwithstanding, I grew up on his (1981?) version and still love it.

Absolutely agree, Perahia is fantastic here (as he usually is)

Trevor Pinnock has such a deep understanding of how rhythm and harmony are connected. I love all of his Bach recordings! His recording of the D minor Concerto for three harpsichords is astounding.

Pinnock's Goldberg recording is gorgeous.

Of the dozen or so performances I’ve heard I feel that Beatrice Rana’s is in a class of its own. She has a delicate touch with high resolution precision. She brings out the colorful playfulness of the piece. Some of the movements are connected without breaks which adds to the story telling.

I'm so glad you have highlighted Trevor Pinnock's version of this wonderful music. I've listened to this performance more times than I can recall over many years and never tire of it. Now in his 70s he has recently recorded book 1 of the Well Tempered Clavier which is equally fine and highly recommendable.

Love this series, and the gong in the back

Perahia's Goldbergs have been my favourite since you pointed it out in your road music video, it's such a musical, beautiful performance.

After your road music video I really came to love Beatrice Ranas recording to the point where it's now my new favourite recording. Really love the articulation and different details throughout the whole thing.

Funnily enough enough, your choices are my favourites too. Thank you Dave!

Hi David, thanks for all your entertaining and insightful content. I have been enjoying them for a while, Keep up the good work! I can also add that Perahia's recording of Bach Keyboard concertos on piano are very enjoyable too and posses the same qualities as the variations.

When CDs were new my first purchase was Pinnock's Goldberg Variations, and I still love it. The performance is terrific and the sonic recording is terrific. And you're absolutely right David - the harpsichord used sounds marvelous. And when I got it - I remember so enjoying the sonics without ever having to worry about a pop or scratch sound. So I hold that memory to this day - the revelation of the new era of digital sound without interfering surface record noise.

Great video David

Truly loving this series, Mr. Hurwitz. It is neat to know what records are close to your heart (or ears). P.S. This one is appropriate. The video that first led me to your channel was a talk on Glenn Gould's Bach... And I haven't looked back.

Dave, your ongoing Scarlatti series gradually softened me up on the solo harpsichord. I bought the complete Scott Ross set for a ridiculously cheap price and expected to take 6 months to go through it, but enjoyed it so much that listened to all 34 discs in 3 weeks. To my surprise, there was no ear fatigue from listening to 60-70 minute discs in one sitting. From there I bought the cheap Ross box of Bach with 9 discs on the harpsichord and 2 on the organ - it has 2 Goldbergs, one studio and one live.

Totally agree. I could even get my dear mother to listen to "classical" by playing her the Perahia recording.

Ooohh I'm honored my Pinnock recording got picked!

Excellent recommendations :) I was pleased to see that, despite no longer having that Archiv recording contract, Pinnock is still very active - he was doing the Matthew Passion either yesterday or today at the Concertgebouw, and that's not nothing! I'll check it out as it will be on the BBC replay site. I love his partitas as well. The Perahia, well, yes, its just so good.

These are two great choices. By very favourite Bach recording of all time, hands down, is a real rarity: The Majesty of the Luneburg Organ, Stereo Fidelity (Somerset) SF-9200 (1959?), LP MIchael Schneider JS Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Toccata in F major, and Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major I inherited the LP from my parents' collection. I have no idea whether it exists on CD. But it is a recording that scratches what itches. The playing is clean but lively, scholarly but inspired. Even the recording quality is surprisingly good.

Pinnock has always been a favorite and he does seem to have very good harpsichord sounds that don't sound like nails on a chalkboard

Thanks, as always, for this series which I have been enjoying tremendously. I can imagine that the Perahia recording of the Goldbergs is the "go to" version for many of your viewers. It is for me, and it since it came out it has bumped Gould's second recording from the top of the heap. Among harpsichord versions, I can't say that I have heard the Pinnock (though I like his Partitas very much). My choice may seem eccentric: Anthony Newman's early CBS recording (I think there's a later version from him on a bargain label). Newman has been a controversial artist since the beginning of his career. Most professional organists despise his bold, aggressive, "in your face" interpretations of Bach. Those characteristic may well be what I enjoy most in his Goldbergs. Never a dull moment. Viscerally exciting in the vituosic variations; imaginative and spontaneous elsewhere. And he brings out the dance rhythms! Yes, he plays a modern harpsichord. That doesn't faze me a bit.

I was 14 and bought my first CDs in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in May 1985. This same Archiv Produktion Pinnock Goldberg Variations was one of them and still has a sticker on the jewel case, "Schallplatten 39.00" DM. Of course, it was the 300th anniversary year of Bach's birth, and Capriccio had a "huge" box set of 17 Bach CD recordings. The music store owner in Garmisch did not have all of these Bach discs, but he did have ten and gave me the cardboard store display box to hold my CD purchases. These discs and the original store Capriccio Edition Bach Leipzig cardboard box are still in my possession after 37 years. As an aside, my first Classical recording purchase was not a CD but an LP of Bach orchestral transcriptions conducted by Eugene Ormandy who had died in March 1985 about a week before Bach's 300th birthday.

Perahia is my favorite, too!

agree 100%, Perahias Goldberg is THE best

Agree absolutely about Perahia's Goldbergs. It's one of those discs that I love SO much that, ironically, I intentionally DO NOT listen to it as often as I want for fear that I'll wear out its magic effect on me. As the French say, "Il et un veritable coup de coeur." (hope I got that right) 🤔

As Dave said, there are scores of great Goldbergs out there, all giving pleasure in different ways; but as an unrepentant fan of Bach's keyboard music on the piano, my favorite recordings are all by pianists, and mostly by pianists who don't hesitate to bring to bear all the resources of the instrument on their performances. The criticism is that in doing so they'll "romanticize" the work, be too "expressive," too "colorful," too concerned with "tonal beauty." Who cares? They make beautiful music that holds my attention through every phrase, everything singing and dancing with a fluidity and rhythmic grace that's not rushed or metronomic or predictable. You feel there's a living, breathing human being playing this stuff. A number of pianists approach the Goldbergs this way, but my favorites have to be Tatiana Nikolayeva and Maria Tipo Too much rubato? pedal? attention to inner voices? Just too idiosyncratic? For purists, probably; but for me it's just great imaginative, humane music-making.

The Soundtrack in the infernal Regions will be Glen Gould's 1955 recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations.

Agreed regarding the Perahia on piano. For harpsichord, it maybe not be best…but my favorite is the Christiane Jaccottet recording on the Pilz label.

Yes, The Perahia recording is wonderful, very nice tone to the piano. The harpsichord has always been difficult for me to warm to. My favorite player has always been Lurch from the Adams family. He always had a very delicate touch and was rhythmically precise. It’s too bad he never recorded the Goldbergs, it just wasn’t his Thing.

Pinnock's Goldberg has been a watershed experience for me ever since the Arkiv album arrived as part of my "International Preview Society" membership in college. It is stunning and I was worried after getting burned with the awful E. Power Biggs harpsichord torture instrument recordings. I remember reading in that book "Dinner with Lenny" - late interview with Leonard Bernstein that the question of period instrument recordings came up and he mentioned this recording of Pinnock as one that made "get up out of his chair with delight". Same thing that happened with harpsichords that happened in the pipe organ world after the "Antiquarians" took over: "This horrible sound you are hearing, ladies and gentlemen, is what a REAL ____________ sounded like." Enough to make you throw up. I also love Andras Schiff's Goldbergs. A really fun thing is the string arrangement with Bernard Labadie and Les Violons du Roi - it is delicious.

No one ever talks about Kempff, when it comes to Goldbergs on the piano. Perahia is great too, of course, but I find Kempff just a touch more poetic in his DG version.

I love your selections; however I was surprised that you didn't choose Zuzana Růžičková for the harpsichord version after your glowing review of her Erato box set.

Another version on harpsichord I would recommend is Igor Kipnis. A fabulous artist truly deserving of a video.

You're right, Dave, at least in my case. I didn't even consider Pinnock or Perahia, even though I'm a Pinnock headbanger and enjoy Perahia's Schumann.

Dave, have you heard Pinnocks recording of a chamber orchestra arrangement of the piece? I like it a lot despite the wackiness of the instrumentation, worth seeking out.

Love the Perahia Goldbergs and listen to it often. Unfortunately, the solo harpsicord has yet to grow on me. I can tolerate it in the Brandenberg concertos or Vivaldi's Four Seasons but not solo. But maybe I just haven't hit upon the right instrument and the right recording.

Maybe I am falling for hipster-hype here, but having badly failed to enjoy rather than at least proudly make it through such must-do performances as Helmut Walcha, Gustav Leonhardt and Blandine Verlet plus never recovering from the disappointment of Keith Jarrett’s wasted outing - which should have been such a such a crossover - the most surprising recent recording updating the harpsichord to a new era was Jean Rondeau’s in the Netherlands Bach Society’s series here on KZfaq - to me it is like Scott Ross’ : a perfect nerd’s choice; blasé guys who can have it all and then limit themselves rather arrogantly to… the harpsichord. Cool! For Goldbergses played on the piano I have, like Kirk Calma, grown up with Gould’s 1981 recording, maybe even discovered Bach this way and listened to it for so long that Dave’s “the opposite of” has become something of my quest over the past 30 years - but Perahia, much like Koroliov for that matter, to me is a tad to italianate or romantic in his approach and I have come to settle on the reverential civil-servant-thoroughness of András Schiff who, to my ears, best blends the Gould austerity with some guardedly daring, lean, even vegan intellectual sensuality… That said, watching Rondeau again, Veganism seems to be the common denominator of what I am looking for in commendable baroque performances these days, some kind of a futon sensuality, a bit ridiculous but… sincere. Thanks Dave: you are by now a major recipient of my “copious free time” and I subscribed to the dotcom in appreciation of your generous offerings of wit and wisdom: I don’t know how you do it but I will keep trying to find out.

Which pianist's mother's recording do you recommend?

The Goldbergs are a real blind spot for me. As Dave said, tiresome. My Tzigane, as if were.

I believe it was Sir Thomas Beecham who described the sound of the harpsichord as two skeletons copulating on a tin roof. I prefer the Perahia recording to Gould.