Review

Rachlin, Rysanov, Maiskyis reviewed by Martin Adams  at the NCH, Dublin

Bach/Sitkovetsky- Goldberg Variations.

Take an iconic work by a composer who fully deserves his iconic status. Take the original for harpsichord and, with the deepest understanding and imagination, arrange it for string trio. Add to that three players from among the finest in the world, and you hope to get what we heard on Monday night: a musical experience to cherish, one that leaves you stunned.

This was my first encounter with Dmitry Sitkovetsky's trio arrangement of Bach's Goldberg Variations. It is revelatory in the way that Ravel's orchestration is of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, for it understands the way the music works - in this case, mainly as three-part counterpoint - and it discloses things that, in the original, are not always transparent.

Listening to this trio version gave one a glimpse of why Bach's music is unusually amenable to arrangement. In some ways the music is far less about sonority and colour than about the discourse of pure pitch and rhythm, filtered through - one hopes - the interaction of musicians who fully understand the inner, purely musical drama. The transfer to modern string instruments and the remarkable playing of violinist Julian Rachlin, viola player Maxim Rysanov and cellist Mischa Maisky, made this piece sound as if it was being discovered anew.

Bach also seems to be above period, place and style. In some parts of the Goldberg, notably the slow and chromatic Variation 16, the music seemed to have some of the rarefied elevation, and even the musical vocabulary, one associates with late Beethoven.

Here and everywhere else, the string playing had an astonishing range of colour and subtle intensity; and it was always appropriate.

This was one of those rare occasions when music and musicians soared above personal expression, into mysterious transcendence.