Emmanuel Music: The Goldberg Variations

On Saturday October 24 at 8 p.m., The Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, under the baton of artistic director Ryan Turner, will stream a performance of J.S. Bach’s masterful Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 in a special arrangement for strings and continuo by famed Canadian conductor Bernard Labadie. The concert was recorded in Emmanuel Church last week, with all participants following COVID protocols.

On Friday, October 23 at 8 p.m., the evening before the program’s premiere, Emmanuel Music also will stream a virtual pre-concert talk by pianist Simone Dinnerstein, internationally acclaimed for her debut recording of the Goldberg Variations. Both events are free and can be viewed on Emmanuel Music’s YouTube channel. Both also will be available on demand for 30 days following the initial streams (https://www.youtube.com/user/emmanuelmusicboston)

Here’s what Ryan Turner has to say about the Goldberg Variations, “A single, transparent ‘Aria’ by Bach for solo keyboard yields 30 ingenious variations. Bernard Labadie’s arrangement uses a considerable panoply of colors and textures so that when the beautiful first aria returns, with a completely different feel from the first hearing, it is nothing short of arresting.”