On screen, the Villa Trissino Marzotto in Vicenza, Italy, conveys a spacious yet intimate impression that totally jibes with how Andrea Bacchetti presents Bach's Goldberg Variations in a sensitively photographed and beautifully engineered DVD performance. Bacchetti's booklet interview cites András Schiff and Murray Perahia as points of reference, alongside Rosalyn Tureck's strong influence regarding moderate tempi and impromptu embellishments. Still, Bacchetti goes his own way. He admits to playing Bach pianistically (“slowly, in a controlled manner”), makes liberal use of the sustain pedal that Gould and Schiff largely avoid, and sometimes employs the middle pedal to hold single notes (most noticeably in Var 14).

While Bacchetti can do detached and dry-point articulation to Gouldian specifications, he's more about singing lines and warm sonorities. He observes all of the repeats save for those in the Aria da capo, and lavishes them with elaborate ornaments and melodic embellishments. Only rarely do these inventions detract from the spirit of Bach's original text, such as in No 7, where the basic lilting rhythm loses focus. Bacchetti's uncommonly slow yet never dragging pace for the cross-handed variations opens up opportunities for variegated voicing and melodic inflection that are less easy to shape at a more propulsive clip. Likewise, the pianist mulls over the famous “Black Pearl” Var 25's unbearable harmonic tension, yet he interestingly treats the two other minor-key pieces (the canons at the fifth and the seventh) in a brisk, relatively straightforward, arguably diffident manner.

A bonus audio-only Goldbergs performance (is it live?) postdates the DVD. The sound quality is not as good, yet here the pianist's generally livelier tempos impart a cumulative and communicative momentum some may find more convincing.