His first recording, Bach's Goldberg Variations, took place that June. The record won instant acclaim. In 1981 Gould departed from his custom of not re-recording a work and, 26 years after his first recording of the Goldberg Variations, went into the same New York studio for his second recording of the work.
https://www.amazon.com/Goldberg-Variations-Glenn-Gould-Plays/dp/B000050IL0
A Desert Of Happiness. The second major flaw in the Goldbergs is how jolly they are. Joy is the default mode of the work, hand in hand with G major. Just look at the bouncy, boisterous, leaping first variation, with its clever crossing of hands.
http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2012/03/16/148769794/why-i-hate-the-goldberg-variations
Gould's album both established the Goldberg Variations within the contemporary classical repertoire and made him an internationally famous pianist nearly overnight. First played in concert by Gould in 1954, the composition was a staple of Gould's performances in the years following the recording.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goldberg_Variations_(Gould_album)
(Jeremy Denk joins us all week to explore the Goldberg Variations. Read his posts on Tuesday and Thursday.) The best reason to hate Bach's Goldberg Variations—aside from the obvious reason that everyone asks you all the time which of the two Glenn Gould recordings you prefer—is that everybody loves them. Not a moment goes by when someone doesn't release a new recording, accompanied by breathless press.
http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2012/03/16/148769794/why-i-hate-the-goldberg-variations
Now, for the first time, this testament is made available with a sound and picture reproduction faithful to the original conception. Glenn Gould's first recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations in 1955 had made his name legendary. Goldberg Variations, BW 988 .
https://www.amazon.com/Goldberg-Variations-Glenn-Gould-Plays/dp/B000050IL0
For the album release, I played the full first half of the Variations for the first time, from memory, and it felt like the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life, like teetering on the edge of a precipice from beginning to end.
http://dantepfer.com/blog/?p=444
At the time of the album's release, Bach's Goldberg Variations—a set of 30 contrapuntal variations beginning and ending with an aria—was outside the standard piano repertoire, having been recorded on the instrument only a few times before, either on small labels or unreleased.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goldberg_Variations_(Gould_album)
The original Columbia Masterworks album cover shows 30 photos of Gould in the studio, analogous to the 30 Goldberg variations. Bach: The Goldberg Variations is the 1955 debut album of the Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould. An interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988), the work launched Gould's career as a renowned international pianist, and became one of the most well-known piano recordings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goldberg_Variations_(Gould_album)
As I look back over the last ten years and the peculiar journey with J.S. Bach that the time represents for me , it ’s sometimes hard to believe that I ’m here , now , playing the Goldberg Variations from memory in their entirety , for sometimes sizeable audiences , well enough apparently to get enthusiastic approval from the classical section of ...
http://dantepfer.com/blog/?p=444
Now, for the first time, this testment is made available with a sound and picture reporduction faithful to our original conception. Glenn Gould's first recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations in 1955 had made his name legendary. This film, shot in New York in April and May 1981, marks his life--as if interpolated between the two peaceful Arias and the two recordings, the one opening, the other closing his career--with a symbol of cyclic perfection.
https://www.amazon.com/Goldberg-Variations-Glenn-Gould-Plays/dp/B000050IL0
how did the goldberg variations get its name
Glenn Gould's first recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations in 1955 had made his name legendary.