Bach : Variations Goldberg. Pienaar.

Piano International (Jan, 2012)
South African Daniel-Ben Pienaar, a professor at London’s Royal Academy, already has a complete cycle of Mozart sonatas for Avie to his credit. His Bach is superbly recorded in a bright and attractive sound that doesn’t tire the ear. He includes some rubato in his playing that is expressive but never distracting. There are hints of being studio-bound (the first variation is bouncy but perhaps not exuberant enough), yet there is more than enough to balance this – try the fluency of Variations V and VIII, the suddenly rich, almost Romantic XXI (‘Canone alla Settima’) or the static beauty of XXI. The fillings are highly imaginative: the Canons (based on the …