Art, unlike other human production, never expires. Like bronze or precious wood, works of art improve as you come back to them time and time again, through constant handling and the endless movement of hands caressing them in appreciation and admiration. The sheen they acquire gives connoisseurs an idea of their richness and hidden beauty; long-term lovers can savour the full extent of their depths.
Frédérick Haas was a very young apprentice musician when he was first introduced to Bach’s Goldberg Variations. He swore that he would master this monumental work before truly considering himself a harpsichordist. He has studied and played the variations endlessly over the years, forever discovering some fresh new detail or subtlety while working diligently on his technique. The Goldberg Variations is a complex work that requires a rigorous, nearly systematic approach.
And yet Haas, now a mature musician, has defied this constraint—moving away from the German harpsichord, with its more standard sound, and opting instead for a French instrument, a Hemsch built in 1751, whose exceptional mechanism allows for greater sound control.
In this way, Haas can offer his full poetic sensitivity and the entire range of emotions experienced through this often-caressed work and its hidden beauty to the vocation of his technique, his labour of love, and his object of undying devotion.
Haas brings to Bach’s complexity a cascade of golden notes ringing clearly and precisely. The Goldberg Variations are in this way transcended through the sheer virtuosity of the former apprentice offering homage to the composer who has given him so much.
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