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In Gould’s 90th anniversary year and 40 years since the second album’s first release, Sony Classical is proud to announce the release of Glenn Gould: The Goldberg Variations – The Complete Unreleased 1981 Recording Sessions, a uniquely detailed window into the creation of this classic recording. 
Across 11 CDs, the set includes the double GRAMMY-winning final release as well as everything committed to tape during the 1981 sessions, restored from the original ¼-inch analogue tapes and mastered using 24 bit / 96 kHz technology.

Gould was famously dismissive of the earlier recording of Bach’s variations that had made his name, adopting a notably slower and more expansive approach the second time around. As Einhorn writes in his article: “Glenn’s thinking about the Goldbergs had evolved considerably since his original recording in 1955. As I understand it, he developed a way to interconnect the variations through an elaborate proportional tempo plan – the upcoming variation’s tempo would be some ratio of the previous variation. This would enable Gould to have a wide variety of musically related tempi for the set.” Sony Classical