Ciclo Goldberg Burmester

Pedro Burmester’s brilliant return to the Goldberg Variations feels like a wise traveler returning home. Bach’s magnificent work meets the pianist in an interpretation that only someone fully matured can achieve, moving through the musical monument with pure intuition.

What immediately stands out in Burmester’s approach is his sense of time, allowing the performer to create truly distinct atmospheres within a single score, which is inherently a multiple-object, invoking diverse canons and contrasting moods. Compared to his 1990s recording, Burmester’s approach is even more fluid, a liberated impulse that only those with mastery can control without losing direction. The wonder of the first recording is amplified. The key lies in intuition, the way the work becomes a body that only the best can tame. In this sense, the Variations come to Burmester like a beloved animal, to be felt and played with passion. In many passages, one senses the same heart-stopping emotion of a lover—moments where the heart seems to pause, then resurrect in splendor, as if everything is reborn anew.

There is a purity that allows a stronger identity. This is an intensely personal version. While legend says the work was intended to aid the sleep of the Russian ambassador, for me it evokes restrained joy and, at times, a sense of farewell rather than simple lull. Variation XXV, perhaps my all-time favorite, the Adagio, is the most poignant, evoking profound interiority. Burmester gives it a solemnity that almost stops our bodies. There is a distance between pianist and piano, as if they must reach each other across memory and longing. Only magic explains it. Understanding that Bach varied the harmonic bass rather than the melody, one realizes he chose to work with music’s backbone, letting the melodic structure arise from it. The master’s revolutionary, deeply didactic approach challenges our attention: first by withholding the sweetness of the theme’s melody, then by forcing us to find beauty in the harsher path. Burmester fully embodies this capacity, creating emotional resonance even from a seemingly cold material.

This recording is a meeting of equals: Bach and Burmester. Centuries disappear as they unite as one intelligence, taking risks because what existed was not enough—more needed to exist.

Valter Hugo Mãe

Dates and Venues

11/04/2025 – Igreja Matriz, Loures – 21:00

24 and 25/05/2025 – Casa de Mateus (Chapel), Vila Real
24/05: pre-concert talk, 18:00; concert, 19:00
25/05: concert, 19:00

28/06/2025 – Monastery of Alcobaça, 21:30

18/10/2025 – Fundação Casa de Bragança, Paço de Vila Viçosa, 18:00

30/01/2026 – Pequeno Auditório CCB, Lisbon, 20:00