New Goldberg Variations

Love the GVs. Ito Ema version on MA recordings is very good. I recall reading that Goldberg commissioned them from Bach to help him sleep. 

Whenever I hear these older pieces of music, I always think that this is possibly the closest we can get to the true history of the past. Anything written by historians can easily have been colored by the writers or whoever hired them to write. Painters made people look better, lest they face unpleasant results. But the notes are there. Exactly as they were when written. Yes, the instruments were often different and the interpretations vary, but it’s still a true look at the past. At least as close as we can reliably get.