Dinnerstein's Goldberg Variations was recorded in the neoclassic auditorium of the Academy of Arts and Letters in New York in March 2005. The piano she plays, a 1903 Hamburg Steinway model D concert grand, was originally owned by the town council of Hull.
Dinnerstein describes her approach to this music as a current interpretation of a timeless work. "Bach's Goldberg Variations is a piece with a profound sense of structure and organization, and yet the listener never experiences these elements as constraints," she says. "It is as expressive as it is diverse. Each variation explores a distinctive mood, a particular sound world, and a unique shade of character and emotion," she continued. "We live in a world that is unimaginably different from Bach's, but this piece speaks to us as powerfully as though it was written for our time."
The Goldberg Variations have become a professional milestone as well for Dinnerstein. Her success story is quite unusual in the classical music world, where careers are often established when musicians are in their early twenties or even late teens, usually by means of a big competition win. But in 2005, Dinnerstein was living a quiet life in Brooklyn with her schoolteacher husband and young son. She had been performing publicly for more than a decade and had been a much-awarded student at The Juilliard School, but at the age of 33, she did not hold a major competition title, nor did she have a manager. She knew she was at a now-or-never age for a classical musician, and she decided to take her career into her own hands.
In November 2005, she performed the complete Goldberg Variations on a self-produced Carnegie Hall recital debut. This bold move, coupled with the increasing interest in her unreleased recording of the piece, won her critical acclaim in the press.
A management contract, a record deal, and concert dates throughout the world have all come together within a span of two years. For Dinnerstein, the release of her recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations on Telarc symbolizes both her determination to stay true to the paths she has chosen in life and in music, and her unwavering belief that each is essential to the other.
SOME OF THE REVIEWS ABOUT THIS MUSIC [ SAMPLE ]
"a thoughtfully conceived, thoroughly modern performance that seemed to take into account the development of Western art music since Bach ... there was something in the slight pauses she took between repeated sections, or between halves of variations, and something in her pacing of the set as a whole, that so completely evoked the image of a journey that Schubert's Winterreise kept coming to mind." -- The New York Times
"...an elegant and assured recording..." -- The New Yorker, August 2007
"Her [Dinnerstein's] conception is unashamedly pianistic (rather than harpsichord-influenced) but always containing her considerable sense of invention within tasteful (but not tidy or conservative) bounds. The performance's sense of tension and release is such that you can almost do breathing exercises to some of the variations. 4 Stars" -- Philadelphia Inquirer
"If you only have 1 hour, 18 minutes: Listen to pianist Simone Dinnerstein's recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations (Telarc), a timeless, meditative, utterly audacious solo debut." -- O Magazine
"a thrilling roller coaster ride with many wonderful surprises in store... her harmonic intensity left an indelible impression on this mesmerized listener." -- American Record Guide
Simone Dinnerstein is a pupil of Peter Serkin and M. Curcio, and has received a notable series of favorable reviews for her musicianship, including glowing praise from Harris Goldsmith for her realization of these very Goldberg Variations. Ms. Dinnerstein recorded the set 11-13 March 2005 at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York. She plays a restored 1903 Hamburg Steinway rather brilliantly inscribed for Telarc by engineer Adam Abehouse.At nearly 80 minutes' playing time, Dinnerstein's Goldberg Variations are among the slowest I have auditioned. Within this leisurely aesthetic, Dinnerstein projects a lovely tone and a gracious sensibility for Bach's architecture and harmonic intricacies. The entire aura of the realization is upbeat and optimistic. Nice shaping of phrases, as in the canon at the third. A pair of light hands in the Fughetta at Variation 10. The faster variations like Variation 14 enjoy a strong pulse, lucid stretti, and clean articulation. The Variation 7 gavotte tempo says pages about the galant style, and Dinnerstein makes it sound like a piece by Lully. Variation 8 bustles with sprightly energy. Nice balance in Variation 12, the canon at the fourth, in which the hands move in contrary motion. The crux variation, the dark and chromatic 15 at the fifth, communicates polyphonic density and spiritual mystery. No. 16 initiates yet another cycle, a sort of dotted overture acting as a prelude to an extended dance suite. Variations 24 and Variation 25 might be gloomy chorale-preludes heard inside a labyrinth. Variation 26 reminds me of Handel's Chaconne in G Minor, immediately followed by the harmonically audacious canon at the ninth degree, Variation 27. A music-box sonority for Variation 28. Bubbling figures take us from Variation 28 to the Quodlibet, where the timeless converges with the timely, since one of the songs, "Turnips and onions have undone me," invokes scatology or proctology. When the Aria returns, pristine, we seem to behold the Mona Lisa's smile, the enigma of Mankind and perhaps its saving grace. -- Audiophile Audition, August 2007
