YUDINA PLAYS BACH, SCHUMANN, LISZT and BRAHMS

It has been said, and I agree, that Maria Yudina plays Bach in a manner that anticipates the Bach of Glenn Gould. To my mind there is no greater compliment. This is not to say their Bach sounds alike, rather that their approach to the performance of his music shares a commonly unique insight into the keyboard music of that great master. Each pianist enjoys an ear that hears the voices speak and is able to reproduce the music in a living, breathing contrapuntal fabric. I would further go out on a limb and say that Vladimir Feltsman is another pianist who has drunk from the same fountain.

Here we have the compete Goldberg Variations played by Maria Yudina. Listen carefully to the extraordinary dialogue in the aria between the soprano and the bass lines. Such discourse, sometimes in complete accord, others at odds, quite insistently so. The depth of Yudina's grasp of this music is chilling.

Similarly, the Preludes and Fugues from Book I of the Well Tempered Clavier, make me want to rethink my life. Her exploration of the sonorities caused by Bach's use of dissonance takes this music out of the realm of the purely beautiful and catapults it into the transcendental. And from between the lines the strength and courage of this amazing woman shine out like a beacon.

Maria Yudina Plays Bach, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms and Debussy in this collection of recordings by the formidable, if often unorthodox, giant of the 20th century Russian pianistic tradition.

Bach  Keyboard Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052
Kurt Sanderling conducting the All-Union Radio Symphony Orchestra

recorded live in 1956

i Allegro