Gold.Berg.Werk - Release 2021

Karlheinz Essl & Xenia Pestova Bennett

About

It’s one of the most sublime but daunting pieces of music ever written for a pianist to play but now J.S Bach’s seminal work, the "Goldberg Variations", has been performed and recorded as never before.

This new and ground-breaking album is called Gold.Berg.Werk, to imply the ‘mining’ of the Goldberg Aria and its 30 variations. It has been written by Austrian composer Karlheinz Essl as a radical reinterpretation of Bach’s original work of 1741 using both classical piano and the latest electro-acoustic technology in live performance.

The Goldberg Variations form a cornerstone of keyboard repertoire and Essl’s highly original interpretation reveals how well-known classical works can be transformed by new kinds of performance practice. The familiar themes, rhythms and harmonies are time-stretched, manipulated and played back using electro-acoustic technology, uniting Baroque and contemporary sounds in real time.

Karlheinz Essl has inserted electro-acoustic interludes that are generated live and spatialised using a small loudspeaker inside the piano with further loudspeakers behind the audience. The sound moves between these, and the order of the variations is changed giving a very fresh take on this famous piece by Bach. It means no two performances are the same due to the live generation of the electronic interludes.

Pianist Xenia Pestova Bennett said: “The very idea of tackling the Goldberg Variations, places an enormous psychological weight of tradition on any keyboard player brave or foolish enough to do so. It is a monumental undertaking for any keyboard player to perform. However, rather than presenting this work as a fixed artefact behind dusty museum glass, or trying to match existing interpretations, I find that it helps to view it as a living and evolving organism. Karlheinz Essl’s Gold.Berg.Werk, a new piece in its own right, takes Bach’s music as a point of departure and offers a fresh perspective.”

Composer Karlheinz Essl said: “Our new interpretation bridges the gap between the sound world of the Baroque era and the sonic reality of the 3rd millennium. My electronics are based on the harmonic progression of the fundamental Aria, from which I stripped all figurations and ornaments. The ‘reduced’ Aria was originally recorded using a string trio in a series of sound experiments. Using a computer programme, I started to improvise with this recorded material and found myself travelling through a microscope into the inner world of the sounds, allowing me to compress, stretch and stop the improvisation at liberty. It released the Aria from its temporal corset and adds a whole new level of ‘variations’ to Bach’s originals.”

Trailer

Video

Tracks

I – Aria (4:14)

II – Aria Electronica I (4:31)

III – Var. 1: Präludium (0:54)

IV – Var. 3: Canone all'Unisono (2:34)

V – Var. 2: Triosonate (1:34)

VI – Var. 6: Canone alla Seconda (1:32)

VII – Var. 13: Sarabande (2:26)

VIII – Sarabanda Electronica (2:13)

IX – Var. 9: Canone alle Terza (1:38)

X – Var. 10: Fughetta (0:50)

XI – Var. 12: Canone alla Quarta (3:35)

XII – Var. 7: Gigue (1:37)

XIII – Var. 15: Canone alla Quinta (2:34)

XIV – Aria Electronica II (4:04)

XV – Var. 16: Ouverture alla Francesca (3:04)

XVI – Var. 18: Canone alla Sesta (0:51)

XVII Var. 19: Musette (0:56)

XVIII – Var. 21: Canone alla Settima (1:57)

XIX – Var. 25: Adagio - Fantasia Chromatica (3:53) XX – Fantasia Chromatica Electronica (3:02)

XXI – Var. 24: Canone all'Ottava (1:17)

XXII – Var. 22: Alla breve - Stile Antico (0:49) XXIII – Var. 27: Canone alla Nona (1:10)

XXIV – Var. 29: Toccata (1:15)

XXV – Var. 30: Quodlibet (1:31)

XXVI – Aria Electronica III (4:56)

XXVII – Aria (4:46)

Bios

Xenia Pestova Bennett is an innovative performer and educator. Described as “a powerhouse of contemporary keyboard repertoire” (Tempo), “stunning” (Wales Arts Review), “ravishing” (Pizzicato) and “remarkably sensuous” (New Zealand Herald) in the international press, she has earned a reputation as a leading interpreter of uncompromising repertoire alongside masterpieces from the past. Dr Pestova Bennett’s commitment and dedication to promoting music by living composers led her to commission dozens of new works and collaborate with major innovators in contemporary music. Her widely acclaimed recordings of core piano duo works of the Twentieth Century by John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen are available on four CDs for Naxos Records. Her evocative solo debut of premiere recordings for the Innova label titled “Shadow Piano” was described as a “terrific album of dark, probing music” by the Chicago Reader. In addition to her career as an interpreter, she is active as an improviser, composer and educator. She is the Director of Performance at the University of Nottingham and also provides wellness coaching to individuals and businesses on work-life balance and dealing with performance anxiety.

The music of Ed Bennett, which has been described in the press as ‘Deeply compelling’ (Sunday Times), ‘stunningly intense’ (the Quietus) and ‘unmistakably distinctive’ (Gramophone) is often characterised by its strong rhythmic energy, extreme contrasts and the combination of acoustic, electronic and multimedia elements; it was described in The Guardian as ‘unclassifiable, raw-nerve music of huge energy and imagination’ and by Sinfini Music as ‘one of the most scintillating voices to emerge of late from Ireland and the British Isles.’ Over the last 25 years he has created a body of work including large-scale orchestral works, ensemble pieces, solo works, electronic music, opera, installations and works for dance and film. In 2019 he was awarded the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Major Individual Artist Award, the highest honour awarded to an artist from the region.

Karlheinz Essl (b. 1960) is an Austrian composer, performer, improviser, media artist and composition teacher. He studied composition in Vienna with Friedrich Cerha and completed his studies in musicology with a doctoral thesis on Anton Webern. Essl was composer-in-residence at the Darmstadt Summer School (1990-94) and at IRCAM in Paris (1991-93). Between 1995-2006 he taught Algorithmic Composition at the Bruckner University in Linz. Since 2007, he has been professor of composition and electro-acoustic music at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. His work with computers and a long-term preoccupation with the poetics of serial music have been formative influences on his compositional thinking. During the 1990s he carried out various projects for the internet and became increasingly involved with improvisation. In 1997, Karlheinz Essl was a featured composer at the Salzburg Festival. His compositions are now played all over the world. Besides writing instrumental music, Karlheinz Essl also works in the areas of electronic music, interactive real-time compositions and sound installations. He develops software environments for algorithmic composition and live electronics.

Thanks to

• The Arts Council of Northern Ireland for the loan of the Steinway D concert piano for the purpose of this recording
• The University of Nottingham IRC Flexible Fund
• The Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s University Belfast
• Craig Jackson, Jonny McGuinnes and Paul Stapleton, Queen’s University Belfast
• Karlheinz Essl for indefatigable enthusiasm
• Ed “Teddy” Bennett for electronic realisations, unwavering support and humour in the face of adversity

Podcast

Bach to the Future | Culture File
Xenia Pestova Bennett on Gold.Berg.Werk (7 Nov 2021)

Xenia Pestova Bennet takes on composer, Karlheinz Essl's Gold.Berg.Werk, which blends a Bach landmark with contemporary electronics and spatialised audio

Xenia Pestova: This is a new realization of Bach's Goldberg Variations, but it's also a new piece in its own right. It's a piece called Gold.Berg.Werk by the Austrian composer Karlheinz Essl. He reordered the original variations so they appear in a different kind of configuration, although the overall structure is the same. So we have the Aria at the beginning, we have the Aria at the end. He also has his own electronic interludes that we hear in between the variations. So it's sort of putting Bach into a contemporary context, if you like.

We know, of course, originally the Goldberg Variations would have been for a harpsichord, and not just any harpsichord, but a harpsichord with two manuals, so two keyboards. So this is a very important distinction because many of the variations are really difficult to play technically on a modern piano. We only have one keyboard. If you have two manuals or keyboards, you can literally pass your hands one on top of another. And if you do all that on a single keyboard, you're kind of clawing at yourself, trying to fit your fingers. But Karlheinz also made a version for string trio, and then he recorded the string trio, the Orpheus Trio in Vienna. And he used that recording to manipulate and generate the electronic material. So what we hear in between the piano variations, a lot of that material still comes from the string trio version. So we hear these kind of beautiful harmonies of the original Aria. Scratched and manipulated, and string sounds kind of moving around. But then they morph into different sounds, they change. And there's even, I believe, a tiny little bit of saxophone. But you wouldn't know. It's really, really hidden. It's just one single high pitch. So it's, yeah, different sounds that he uses. If you hear it live, the electronic interludes are actually spatialized. They move through the concert space.

You know, it's not a fixed sound source coming from a loudspeaker. In fact, we don't see the speakers, they're hidden. And the sound moves. That's why you need a second performer on stage. So it's a duo. So there's the pianist, myself, and then there's another performer who is moving the sound around. And it's really, really an amazing experience. So it kind of moves behind the audience, and then it comes out of the piano. And it's a very clever setup. It's really, really amazing. There is a tiny little loudspeaker that's hidden inside the piano, and it uses the resonance of the piano. So it's a transducer speaker, which means it only sounds if it's in contact with the surface. So it sits on the resonant soundboard of the piano. The pedal of the piano is down, which means that all the strings can vibrate, and this is what kind of creates the resonance. And there's another speaker behind the audience.

So it's a very simple setup. It's really only two loudspeakers. And in our recording, we also created a binaural version, which gives some idea of this movement. So there is a bonus download binaural version, which has at least some of the movement. Not the same as being in concert. So if you can catch us in concert, that would be best. But you also get an idea in the recording. For our version, Karlheinz couldn't join us because of the travel restrictions caused by the COVID pandemic.

Luckily, my other half, my husband, Ed Bennett, who's a composer and a performer as well, he knows the piece. And he knows Karlheinz. We've worked together, so he's been able to step in at quite short notice to do the electronics. So Ed performs with me on stage, and he has a little setup with his MIDI controller and his laptop. So he has all the sounds on his laptop and he controls the distribution through space. If you watch him, actually, he's performing as well. It's very engaging because he's moving, you know, and the sounds are moving. It's really a very interesting kind of world that you get to experience as an audience member, I think. It's a very interesting piece. It's a very challenging piece. I suppose one thing that occurs to me when thinking about it, and I've been thinking about it a lot, is that, rightly or wrongly, we have expectations about how music should be played, how it should be presented. I'm talking about classical music particularly, and that sort of sense of tradition that can be associated with it. And I think it's really good to challenge these expectations and challenge these norms, and especially as we move forward and, you know, perhaps try to entice new audiences to listen to this music.

Certainly with the Goldberg Variations, there's a lot of this venerated tradition, and it's very weighty. And you have so many really wonderful interpretations that we have on record available to us. So I also kind of found that very challenging when thinking about, okay, I'm approaching this piece. It's almost like, how dare I, you know, who am I to approach this edifice, and you know, that so many great pianists and harpsichordists have interpreted. But then it's been quite liberating to think about it in different ways and thinking, well, we're also recontextualizing the fact that we're reframing it with electronic sound, is adding something new. And it also allows me to shed maybe a personal interpretation onto this piece. And it was very liberating then to think, okay, well, how am I going to play the variations themselves? Maybe it's also okay to allow this to be personal so I can explore and add something that is my own. I don't have to feel like I must measure up to the Glenn Gould versions or Angela Hewitt or, you know, whatever you like. It doesn't matter ultimately.

Luke Clancy: Xenia Pestova Bennett will be performing Gold.Berg.Werk at Sunday noon at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. And the recorded version of the piece with that bonus binaural file is out on November 12th on Ergodos via Bandcamp.

Updated: 31 Oct 2026