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Goldberg Variations with the Helena Baillie String Trio [August 2014]
Sunday, August 24 at All Souls Church
The 23Arts Initiative and Friends of Tannersville Organization concluded their inaugural summer events series with a free string trio performance of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations at All Souls Church on Sunday, August 24th, 2014. The concert featured Helena Baillie on violin, Maurycy Banaszek on viola and Raman Ramakrishnan on cello.
An acclaimed example of the variation form, Goldberg Variations captures Bach’s command of baroque forms and dances - the aria, canon, fugue, overture - and his revelatory expansion of these genres. Legend has it that Bach wrote this aria and its 30 variations for his pupil Johann Gottlieb Goldberg to play for an insomniac patron.
"Sitkovetsky's transcription of the Goldberg Variations is nothing short of a revelation,” said Baillie. “In transforming the original for solo piano into a string trio version, the music radiates a fantasia-like freedom and spiritual intensity."