Sony releases Gould’s Goldberg Variations sessions

Sony Classical is to release Glenn Gould’s complete sessions for his famous 1955 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations as part of a new box set.

Glenn Gould: The Goldberg Variations – The Complete Unreleased Recording Sessions features almost five hours of music from the recording sessions, as well as studio conversations, rare archive photos, the complete score, and extensive background documentation.

Completed in a total of only four days (between 10 and 16 June 1955) and released on Columbia Masterworks in January 1956, Glenn Gould’s first recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations has became one of the most successful classical albums of all time.

Once the LP master tape had been edited, the ten remaining magnetic tapes of the recording sessions were stored in the archive of Columbia Records, where they lay forgotten for more than 60 years.

Sony hopes that this release will preserve the recordings for posterity, and that the documentation included will serve as source material for subsequent research into Gould’s life and work.

Glenn Gould: The Goldberg Variations – The Complete Unreleased Recording Sessions was released on 1 September.

www.sonyclassical.com/releases/88843014882