Mahan Esfahani recently created a recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations for Deutsche Grammophon, which has garnered accolades as a valuable, inventive, and extremely accessible approach to the pieces. He is the first solo harpsichordist to appear on the DG books for many years, demonstrating the esteem with which he is now regarded, and it's a privilege and pleasure to have this material realised on stage in Oxford. This is virtuoso stuff, and was magically presented at the Sheldonian.
Esfahani is steeped in this material, and utterly at home there, but his interpretation of Bach is informed by exposure to and championing of harpsichord works by many contemporary composers such as Reich, Gorecki and Kidane: the harpsichord has its own timbre and quality that a surprising number of 20th and 21st century composers understand and employ. The modern audience might be more accustomed to hearing the Goldberg Variations on the piano rather than the harpsichord for which they were created, but the Variations were created for a two-manual keyboard, and that's surely the context where the work really belongs, as was amply proved in this concert.
Esfahani has said that his own interpretation of the Goldberg pieces - or indeed anything else he plays by Bach - can't be regarded as fixed and definitive, and he'll perhaps revisit them for DG as he continues his explorations of this repertoire in live performance. He is passionate about this composer, as are his extraordinary teachers Zuzana Ruzicková and Peter Watchorn - and he often gives an introduction and exposition on the works in the course of a performance. But on this occasion, he gave a politically-charged statement and Q&A session at the end of the evening, reminding us that our engagement with the arts shouldn't be divorced from our engagement with the rest of life. In his opinion, the only legitimate response in times of trial and upset is to deepen our understanding of our own art, whatever that may be - a valuable lesson to take home from an excellent evening.
