Schiff Puts Stamp on ‘Goldberg’ Variations

Music is not abstract, though we call it that. It speaks without words yet articulates thoughts, feelings and moods even more strongly than words. Musical compositions may not have “subjects,” yet their subjects exist nonetheless.

Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations, which esteemed Hungarian pianist Andras Schiff played Monday night in Founders Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, expresses a novel’s worth of human emotions. Schiff’s authoritative performance touched many of these, and thrillingly, in different ways than versions by other famed players of this work, say Glenn Gould and Daniel Barenboim on recordings and, decades ago, Ralph Kirkpatrick, nearby in Laguna Beach.

Tempos, accents, emphases and nuances of mood can be variable in a Bachian context; moreover, continuity between the 30 pieces that make up the work can be laid out according to each interpreter’s individual plan.

Schiff’s performance, before a large and attentive audience in the small room--sounded pristine and individual. He took some of the variations with breathtaking quickness, reveling in virtuoso display, dawdled lovingly over slower ones, chose melancholy over sadness in the minor-keyed items, made some neutral variations deeply pensive.

He stressed the contrasts in a compelling way, yet without over-dramatizing. And when he chose lightness, his playfulness became infectious.

Throughout, a sense of spontaneity dominated, but it was the listener, not the performer, who was surprised in small things.

Technical considerations never intruded on one’s thoughts; the fact, for instance, that Schiff used no pedal--or very little pedal. Nor did his choice of ornaments come into question: All musical expression emerged naturally, and unforced.

In the end, one was struck by the exuberance and seriousness of the work itself, and by the way it changes personality with each interpreter, even though stylistic strictures would seem to limit the parameters of difference.

These “Goldberg” Variations were, clearly, Andras Schiff’s, yet they were first and incontrovertibly Bach’s.

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* Andras Schiff appears as conductor and piano soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Thursday at 8 p.m., in a program comprising Bach’s Keyboard Concerto in D minor, Haydn’s Symphony No. 95 and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, the “Emperor.” $10-$70. (323) 850-2000. Also, Sunday at 2:30 p.m.