J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations (Live at Carnegie Hall, New York, 2025)

This is an astonishingly fine Goldberg Variations—perhaps the finest piano interpretation to have emerged in recent years, studio recording or live performance. Bach’s infinitely inventive variations have never gone out of fashion, but it seems, with so many Bach releases of late, that we’re living at a time when the composer’s music has never seemed more essential. Bach’s Goldbergs, 30 variations on a simple aria, are timeless and universal, and its technical complexities are tempered by the perfection and beauty of its form. But there is a quiet spirituality to them, too, that seems to make them especially relevant today. “Bach dedicated his life to God, but to me this piece is very human,” Yuncham Lim tells Apple Music Classical. His performance, he says, was greatly influenced by fellow pianists Konstantin Lifschitz and Peter Serkin. “The Goldberg Variations encompass everything about human life,” adds Lim; “I realised that Bach was someone who lived in the world, just like the rest of us.” Yunchan Lim’s playing has that universality and spirituality in spades, manifested by the subtleness of his expression, tempos that play to the spirit of each variation, and a seeming respect for Bach’s grand plan (he observes all repeats throughout). His ornamentation is crisp but never overbearing, and each repeat reveals an astonishing ability to reshape phrases, highlight melodic lines and remould textures without ever losing sight of the music’s spirit. Many of these ideas were planned in advance, says Lim: “I presented all the ideas I could possibly come up with to my teacher, Minsoo Sohn, during lessons. From there, we kept refining them—constantly removing what felt unnecessary, while preserving the ideas that I felt I could genuinely execute at this stage of my life. In the end, I aimed to keep the variations well-considered and never excessive.” That this performance should happen live in front of a Carnegie Hall audience makes it all the more impressive. “I play best at home, and I found the hall very overwhelming,” admits Lim. “However, it was very important to me to record this piece at Carnegie Hall. Ever since I heard Konstantin Lifschitz’s live album from the Moscow Conservatory, I dreamt of doing the same.” Even from Variation 1, this performance feels fresh, like a newly-printed edition that at last clears the path for a deeper understanding. The repeats are where the magic happens—those fleeting ornaments providing an insight into Lim’s clear delight in Bach’s music. And there’s a clarity to the complex, imitative canon variations (Variation 18 a great example among many) that almost takes the breath away. As does Variation 25, the so-called “Black Pearl” variation of Shakespearean depth and scope to which Lim brings a remarkable depth of colour and tone. And his transition to the following Variation 26 is Mozartian in its carefree elegance, the darkness forgotten in a delicate filigree cascade. The rustic “Quodlibet” Variation 30 brings us to the final aria—slower, more thoughtful, exhausted perhaps. A gentle postlude to one of western music’s most remarkable journeys.