Goldberg Variations - Johann Sebastian Bach - Piano Society (Admins and Artists only) Goldberg Variations - BWV.988 The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, are a set of 30 variations for harpsichord. First published in 1741 as the fourth in a series Bach called Clavier-ï¿œbung, "keyboard practice", the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form. It is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may have been the first performer. The tale of how the variations came to be composed comes from a biography of Bach written by Johann Nikolaus Forkel: "For this work we have to thank the instigation of the former Russian ambassador to the electoral court of Saxony, Count Kaiserling, who often stopped in Leipzig and brought there with him the aforementioned Goldberg, in order to have him given musical instruction by Bach. The Count was often ill and had sleepless nights. At such times, Goldberg, who lived in his house, had to spend the night in an antechamber, so as to play for him during his insomnia. ...

Once the Count mentioned in Bach's presence that he would like to have some clavier pieces for Goldberg, which should be of such a smooth and somewhat lively character that he might be a little cheered up by them in his sleepless nights. Bach thought himself best able to fulfill this wish by means of Variations, the writing of which he had until then considered an ungrateful task on account of the repeatedly similar harmonic foundation. But since at this time all his works were already models of art, such also these variations became under his hand. Yet he produced only a single work of this kind. Thereafter the Count always called them his variations. He never tired of them, and for a long time sleepless nights meant: 'Dear Goldberg, do play me one of my variations.' Bach was perhaps never so rewarded for one of his works as for this. The Count presented him with a golden goblet filled with 100 louis-d'or. Nevertheless, even had the gift been a thousand times larger, their artistic value would not yet have been paid for." Forkel wrote his biography in 1802, more than 60 years after the events related, and its accuracy has been questioned.

The lack of dedication on the title page of the "Aria with Diverse Variations" also makes the tale of the commission unlikely. Goldberg's age at the time of publication (14 years) has also been cited as grounds for doubting Forkel's tale, although it must be said that he was known to be an accomplished keyboardist and sight-reader. In a recent book-length study, keyboardist and Bach scholar Peter Williams contends that the Forkel story is entirely spurious. The aria on which the variations are based was suggested by Arnold Schering not to have been written by Bach. More recent scholarly literature (the edition by Christoph Wolff, cited below) suggests there is no basis for such doubts. The structure of the Goldberg Variations deserves some explanation. It can be seen as a circle, starting and ending with the Aria. Between those two endpoints, we find 30 variations, organized in ten groups of three variations. Each variation is supported by the same bass line, and, more or less, the same harmonic structure, although some of them are in minor key. The 3-variation groups always start with a variation of varied structure (a dance, a fughetta, a two- or three-part invention etc.).

Then comes a virtuoso one, followed by a canon. In the first canon, 'All unisono', the second voice is the repetition of the first one. In the second one ('Alla Seconda'), the second voice starts one tone higher, and so on until the canon 'Alla Nona', where the interval between the two voices is a 9th. In order to avoid total symmetry, which could bring some dryness and a too abstract character, Bach no longer writes a canon for the last set of three pieces, but rather a 'Quodlibet'. In this marvellous piece, the bass line is superimposed by two then-popular German songs, 'Ich bin so lang nicht bei dir g'west' and 'Kraut und Rï¿œben haben mich vertrieben'. Only Bach could have so seamlessly integrated these simple folk-style songs into a truly sublime Quodlibet. We can discern at least three levels in the structure of the Goldbergs. On the first level, we see a clear division in two parts. The first part is an aria with 15 variations, and the second part mirrors the first: 15 variations and an aria.

Each part lasts about 20 minutes when performed without the repeats. A concert performance including the repeats could therefore take as long as 1.5 hours. On the second level we have the groups of 3 variations (free-virtuoso-canon). Finally on the third level we have the individual variations, each being a complete piece in itself. We could even discern a fourth level, since each variation is two-fold: the first half going from the tonic to the dominant (that is from G to D), the second half doing the reverse way (from the dominant to the tonic, D to G). Only Bach could have combined such a rigid, almost mathematical structure with music of the highest spiritual and emotional order. Bach's Enduring Enigma: An Introduction To The 'Goldberg Variations' : Deceptive Cadence : NPR All this week, a look at Bach's Goldberg Variations from many points of view. Guido Bergmann/Getty Images Johann Sebastian Bach 's Goldberg Variations has become an iconic monument in Western music. On one level, it's simply a beautiful keyboard work, and on another, it's a Rubik's Cube of invention and architecture.

From its apocryphal back story (based on a count's sleepless nights), to its labyrinthine structure, to the breakthrough recording by Glenn Gould , the Goldbergs carry a heavy load of compelling baggage. Throughout this Bach birthday week — he was born 327 years ago Wednesday — we'll explore the Goldbergs with guests like Harvard professor Christoph Wolff (click the audio link above), the director of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, who helps put the music in context. Other Goldberg Week guests include pianist Jeremy Denk , whose thoughtful and offbeat sense of humor creeps into his essays , performances and videos ; pianist Lara Downes, who looks forward from Bach through the lens of today's composers; Andreas Staier, who takes us on a tour of his high-performance harpsichord; and thoughts from pianist Leif Ove Andsnes . Also look for our official interactive "Goldberg Puzzler" and lists of great Goldbergs, and Goldbergs in costume. Do you have stories, opinions or questions about the Goldberg Variations? Join the conversation this week in the comments sections of our stories, also on Facebook and Twitter @ #NPRGoldberg. And join us this Friday, Mar.

23rd at 12 noon, ET for a live online listening party. We'll play and discuss Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tim Page (a friend of Gould's) and Washington Post classical music critic Anne Midgette. Article continues after sponsorship New to Bach's delightfully intricate and huge keyboard piece? Read on for a brief Goldberg Variations FAQ, with comments from Professor Wolff. What are the Goldberg Variations? Around 1741, Bach published a long and complicated keyboard piece, calling it Aria with diverse variations for a harpsichord with two manuals (keyboards). Wolff says it was the final work in a much larger endeavor: "This is the capstone of a publication project which is called in German Clavier-Übung — in English perhaps best translated as Keyboard Practice — where he wanted to show what was possible at the keyboard in terms of technical development, technical, virtuosic finesse and compositional sophistication." The music is constructed symmetrically, beginning with a beautifully tranquil and highly ornamented Aria, the bass line of which fuels the 30 variations that follow.

There is something of a dividing line after variation 15, and the piece ends as it begins, with the return of the Aria. Every third variation is a canon — the melody of each is laid over itself, as in "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" — with the additional complication that the pitch difference between the melodies rises from a canon in unison up to the canon in ninths. Why The Name Goldberg? Legend has it that Bach wrote the music to sooth the sleepless nights of one Count Kaiserling, who asked his private harpsichordist, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, to perform the variations. Wolff maintains the legend isn't true. "It is not true, at least not as a story that explains the origin of the work," Wolff says. "It may be related to the history of the work during Bach's time. When Bach wrote the variations, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg was 13 years of age. He apparently was a very gifted kid. He was a student of Bach's son, Wilhelm Friedemann in Dresden, but he also took lessons with J.S. Bach in Leipzig." What Is The Source Of The Variations?

Although Bach published the Goldberg Variations around 1741, Wolff says he apparently came up with the opening Aria some years earlier. "We do have a copy of just the Aria in the hand of Anna Magdalena Bach, Johann Sebastian's second wife, who was a singer," Wolff says. "She apparently wanted to play the piece, and it probably wasn't copied by her until the late 1730s." "But I think the origin goes back to an idea Bach got from Handel . Handel, in 1733, published an aria with 64 variations. The variations are based on the same Aria bass, but it's only eight measures long. And Bach thought that 'This is a wonderful idea to have many variations on such a promising ground bass. But the bass is too short for me, I'll make it longer.' So instead of eight measures, he turned it into 32 measures." Bach turned his set of 30 variations into a deeper, much more sophisticated showpiece that Handel's. It may have even been Bach's way of saying "I can do much better than you." What Happened to the Goldbergs after Bach died?

There are many gaps in the story after Bach's death in 1750. "We do not know how widely disseminated the piece was," Wolff says, "but it clearly was printed in at least 100 copies, so it was circulating quite widely. But we have no specific record of any public performances of the work essentially until the late 19th and the 20th centuries." Who were some of the first Goldberg champions? Pianist Rudolf Serkin took up the Goldberg Variations in the late 1920s, but Polish harpsichordist Wanda Landowska was the first to record the Goldbergs in the early 1930s. She was a pioneer of the harpsichord revival who went on to teach in Berlin, Paris and the U.S. She made several recordings of the Goldbergs. "I think they were really, absolutely crucial with respect to making the piece known across Europe, and then also in the United States, as a work for harpsichord, an instrument that was not very well known at the time," Wolff says. Landowska played an instrument far from what Bach would have recognized.

Her late 19th-century harpsichord, Wolff says, was made with Steinway technology. The Pleyel harpsichord had an iron frame, which meant that it held the tuning better but had a much thinner sound than wood-framed models from Bach's time. What's Up With Glenn Gould? In 1955, at age 22, Canadian pianist Glenn Gould signed a recording contract with Columbia Records and recorded the Goldberg Variations. At the time, the piece was considered esoteric and a risky choice for a debut recording. But Gould's Goldbergs exceeded all expectations, becoming a runaway bestseller and launching Gould's international career. "After this Glenn Gould recording," Wolff says, "the Goldberg Variations really had become a household word." Gould's recording is brilliantly fast, precise and transparent. He ignores Bach's repeat markings in the score, which shrinks the total time of the Goldbergs to less than 39 minutes, neatly fitting on two sides of an LP. Recordings today typically clock in between 60-80 minutes. Gould would record the Goldbergs again in 1981 with a vastly different, less flashy approach.

What Would Bach Think Of Gould's recording? "He primarily would have enjoyed knowing that more than 200 years after the work originated, it was performed by modern musicians for modern audiences," Wolff says. As far as Gould's recording being on the modern day piano, Wolff believes that it may not have mattered to Bach, as he was interested in new sonorities all his life. Bach was asked to test-drive the latest technologies in keyboard manufacturing. Piano vs. Harpsichord: What's Better? "I wouldn't want to argue about it," Wolff says. "I think a good harpsichordist on a good instrument would present the piece just as well as a pianist thinking about the stylistic requirements, using very little pedal and so forth, but making the best out of the piano sound and creating the kind of transparency that Bach's polyphonic designs require. I think there is no aesthetic difference between the two." "But I think for the listener it is a difference," Wolff concludes, "because the listener will hear things on the piano that he may not hear when the piece is performed on the harpsichord and vice versa.

So I think it is a good experience to hear it both ways." Goldberg Variations | Piano Society A big thank you to Project Petrucci who has helped us already meet our 2017 goal! Goldberg Variations Well-tempered Clavier The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, are a set of 30 variations for harpsichord. First published in 1741 as the fourth in a series Bach called Clavier-Übung, "keyboard practice", the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form. It is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may have been the first performer. The tale of how the variations came to be composed comes from a biography of Bach written by Johann Nikolaus Forkel: "For this work we have to thank the instigation of the former Russian ambassador to the electoral court of Saxony, Count Kaiserling, who often stopped in Leipzig and brought there with him the aforementioned Goldberg, in order to have him given musical instruction by Bach. The Count was often ill and had sleepless nights.

At such times, Goldberg, who lived in his house, had to spend the night in an antechamber, so as to play for him during his insomnia. ... Once the Count mentioned in Bach's presence that he would like to have some clavier pieces for Goldberg, which should be of such a smooth and somewhat lively character that he might be a little cheered up by them in his sleepless nights. Bach thought himself best able to fulfill this wish by means of Variations, the writing of which he had until then considered an ungrateful task on account of the repeatedly similar harmonic foundation. But since at this time all his works were already models of art, such also these variations became under his hand. Yet he produced only a single work of this kind. Thereafter the Count always called them his variations. He never tired of them, and for a long time sleepless nights meant: 'Dear Goldberg, do play me one of my variations.' Bach was perhaps never so rewarded for one of his works as for this. The Count presented him with a golden goblet filled with 100 louis-d'or.

Nevertheless, even had the gift been a thousand times larger, their artistic value would not yet have been paid for." Forkel wrote his biography in 1802, more than 60 years after the events related, and its accuracy has been questioned. The lack of dedication on the title page of the "Aria with Diverse Variations" also makes the tale of the commission unlikely. Goldberg's age at the time of publication (14 years) has also been cited as grounds for doubting Forkel's tale, although it must be said that he was known to be an accomplished keyboardist and sight-reader. In a recent book-length study, keyboardist and Bach scholar Peter Williams contends that the Forkel story is entirely spurious. The aria on which the variations are based was suggested by Arnold Schering not to have been written by Bach. More recent scholarly literature (the edition by Christoph Wolff, cited below) suggests there is no basis for such doubts. The structure of the Goldberg Variations deserves some explanation. It can be seen as a circle, starting and ending with the Aria. Between those two endpoints, we find 30 variations, organized in ten groups of three variations.

Each variation is supported by the same bass line, and, more or less, the same harmonic structure, although some of them are in minor key. The 3-variation groups always start with a variation of varied structure (a dance, a fughetta, a two- or three-part invention etc.). Then comes a virtuoso one, followed by a canon. In the first canon, 'All unisono', the second voice is the repetition of the first one. In the second one ('Alla Seconda'), the second voice starts one tone higher, and so on until the canon 'Alla Nona', where the interval between the two voices is a 9th. In order to avoid total symmetry, which could bring some dryness and a too abstract character, Bach no longer writes a canon for the last set of three pieces, but rather a 'Quodlibet'. In this marvellous piece, the bass line is superimposed by two then-popular German songs, 'Ich bin so lang nicht bei dir g'west' and 'Kraut und Rüben haben mich vertrieben'. Only Bach could have so seamlessly integrated these simple folk-style songs into a truly sublime Quodlibet.

We can discern at least three levels in the structure of the Goldbergs. On the first level, we see a clear division in two parts. The first part is an aria with 15 variations, and the second part mirrors the first: 15 variations and an aria. Each part lasts about 20 minutes when performed without the repeats. A concert performance including the repeats could therefore take as long as 1.5 hours. On the second level we have the groups of 3 variations (free-virtuoso-canon). Finally on the third level we have the individual variations, each being a complete piece in itself. We could even discern a fourth level, since each variation is two-fold: the first half going from the tonic to the dominant (that is from G to D), the second half doing the reverse way (from the dominant to the tonic, D to G). Only Bach could have combined such a rigid, almost mathematical structure with music of the highest spiritual and emotional order. BWV 988 - Goldberg Variations - Part II 20:59 The timings in the table below are not durations, but time offsets within the complete recording by Francois de Larrard.

Part 1 Aria 00:00 Var. 1 01:59 Var. 2 02:56 Var. 3 Canone all'Unisono 03:50 Var. 4 04:58 Var. 5 05:32 Var. 6 Canone alla Seconda 06:17 Var. 7 Al tempo di Giga 07:03 Var. 8 08:10 Var. 9 Canone alla Terza 09:07 Var. 10 Fughetta 10:19 Var. 11 11:08 Var. 12 Canone alla Quarta 12:12 Var. 13 13:20 Var. 14 15:49 Var. 15 Canone alla Quinta 16:53 Part 2 Var. 16 Ouverture 00:00 Var. 17 01:33 Var. 18 Canone alla Sesta 02:34 Var. 19 03:13 Var. 20 04:02 Var.

21 Canone alla Settima 05:06 Var. 22 Alla breve 06:55 Var. 23 07:38 Var. 24 Canone all'Ottava 08:44 Var. 25 Adagio 10:05 Var. 26 13:46 Var. 27 Canone alla Nona 14:50 Var. 28 15:38 Var. 29 16:52 Var. 30 Quodlibet 17:55 Aria 18:47 Goldberg Variations | LA Phil Goldberg Variations Last Modified: February 6, 2013 Little is known about Johann Sebastian Bach's early youth. One thing we do know is that he started on keyboards before he went to school, working at the organ under the supervision of his second cousin Johann Christoph. It marked the beginning of a life-long devotion to the keyboard for Johann Sebastian. There are several events that chronicle Bach's relationship to the family of keyboard instruments.

After his parents died, the ten-year-old went to live with his older brother, a church organist in the small German town of Ohrdruf. There, as a teen-ager, Johann Sebastian observed the construction of a new organ at his brother's church with great interest. Johann Sebastian would be renowned during his lifetime not as a composer, but as an expert on organs and keyboard playing in general. In 1700, Bach went to Lüneburg, a larger city southwest of Hamburg, as a student. There, he heard and got to know one of the leading organists of the previous generation, Georg Böhm. Bach also went to Hamburg to hear another leading keyboardist, Johann Adam Reincken; Bach owned manuscript copies of Reincken's variations and arranged pieces from Reincken's Hortus musicus, a chamber work, for keyboard. In 1705, Bach made the 230-mile trip from the southwest German town of Arnstadt, where he was employed as organist at the Neue Kirche (New Church), to Lübeck, a port city on the Baltic Sea, to hear another renowned player of an earlier generation, Dietrich Buxtehude.

This interest in the music of his baroque predecessors served the young Bach well, as he set out on a compositional career that marked the pinnacle of the baroque era and would have a profound influence on generations of composers to come. The Aria mit verschiedenen Veränderungen (Aria with Diverse Variations) comes from the last decade of Bach's life. It was the fourth and final part of Bach's Clavier-Übung (Keyboard Exercise), a series of works for various instruments that are both some of the finest examples of his keyboard writing and outstanding didactic works.

Clavier-Übung I (Leipzig, 1731) consisted of Bach's six French Suites; part II (Leipzig, 1735) brought together his Concerto nach italiänischem Gusto and his Overtüre nach französischer Art (the Italian Concerto and French Overture, both of which still turn up with some frequency on the music stands of keyboard students today); and part III (Leipzig, 1739) offered a German organ mass, with an opening Kyrie followed by a series of preludes and fugues on the most famous chorales of the Lutheran service, all framed by the majestic "St. Anne" Prelude and Fugue. Bach composed his Variations in 1741 for a pupil, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (which explains the work's common title). Goldberg was in the service of Count Hermann Carl von Kaiserling, a diplomat Bach probably met during a visit to Dresden in 1733.

(He had been to Dresden once before, for a keyboard contest with the French virtuoso Louis Marchand, who left secretly by carriage under cover of darkness the night before, fearing Bach would trounce him.) During the time leading up to the Goldberg Variations, Kaiserling was frequently resident in Leipzig, and Goldberg with him. According to Johann Nikolaus Forkel's biography of Bach, published in 1802, "The Count was often sickly, and then had sleepless nights. At these times Goldberg, who lived in the house with him, had to pass the night in an adjoining room to play something when the Count could not sleep. The Count once said to Bach that he should like to have some clavier pieces for his Goldberg, which should be of such a soft and somewhat lively character that he might be a little cheered up by them in his sleepless nights. Bach thought he could best fulfill this wish by variations, the composition of which, on account of the constant sameness of the fundamental harmony, he had hitherto considered an ungrateful task. But as at this time all his works were models of art, these variations also became such under his hand.

This is, indeed, the only model of the kind that he has left us. The Count thereafter called them nothing but his variations. He was never weary of hearing them, and, for a long time, when the sleepless nights came, he used to say, 'Dear Goldberg, do play me one of my variations.' Bach was, perhaps, never so well-rewarded for any work as for this: the Count made him a present of a golden goblet, filled with 100 Louis d'ors." Forkel was off about Bach's experience writing variations. An Aria variata from sometime before 1710 and an Air with Variations in C minor from the Clavierbüchlein (Little Keyboard Book) he assembled in the 1720s for his wife Anna Magdalena both predate the Goldberg Variations in Bach's output, but do not offer overwhelming evidence of a fondness for the form, so on that point, Forkel was right. But the sheer variety of the Goldberg Variations could easily fool the listener into believing that Bach had been writing variations all his life, and that this set marked the culmination of his work in the genre.

Bach composed the Variations with a two-manual harpsichord in mind, but many artists choose to play them on modern pianos. (András Schiff uses a Hamburg Steinway.) The modern piano expands on the possibilities of the two-manual harpsichord, which allowed the player to differentiate between soft and loud. The form of the Goldberg Variations seems to be governed by numbers derived from three and eight. The starting-point for the 30 variations is the opening Aria. It's 32 bars long, divided into two 16-bar halves, each of which Bach marks to be repeated. The Aria is also divided into four eight-bar sections harmonically (G major-D major-E minor-G major). A slow saraband, the Aria presents the basic thematic material, as well as the bass line, on which Bach elaborates in each of the subsequent variations. The variations take their cue from the proportions of the Aria and are all either 16 or 32 bars in length.

The variations can be grouped into ten sets of three, with the third variation in each set being a canon, the strict-est form of contrapuntal imitation, where one voice imitates another at a set interval. (The choral round is a good, basic example of a canon.) In addition to these subdivisions, the variations are split into two halves, mirroring the structure of the Aria, with the grandiose gestures of the 16th variation, a French overture, marking the beginning of the work's figurative second half. If you count the opening Aria and its repeat at the close, the Goldberg Variations is in 32 sections, mirroring the 32 bars of the Aria itself. (There has been speculation about Bach's interest in numerology to explain these mathematical divisions and subdivisions.

At the very least, the work's careful layout reflects the rigorous nature of Bach's musicianship and compositional technique, but he may not have viewed the Variations as an "integral" work, if we believe Forkel's anecdote or if a copy of the work Bach gave to an English visitor in 1749 containing only the Aria and Variations 9 and 10 is any indication.) The title page of the Goldberg Variations is inscribed: "Composed for music lovers, to refresh their spirits, by Johann Sebastian Bach." It is a charmingly modest explanation of their purpose, for, in terms of their importance with respect to Bach's compositional output, the Variations brought together everything he'd learned in a lifetime of keyboard-playing, with echoes of his youthful experiences of Böhm, Buxtehude, and Reincken in the canons and traces of the latest Italian and French music in some of the other sections. They richly demonstrate his mastery of keyboard music both as a performer and as a composer. Each of the variations is extraordinary in its own way. Some show the influence of dance, as with the gigue of Variation 7.

Others, such as the elegantly spun-out Variation 13 or the darker, more inward world of Variation 25 - Wanda Landowska's "black pearl" - contrast with the faster sections around them. Variation 25, in E minor but tinged with chromaticism, brings us into the final part of the work, with each subsequent variation driving the music toward the final Quodlibet (Latin for "what pleases"). Here, Bach combines the melodies of two folk songs - "Ich bin so lang bei dir nicht g'west" (I haven't been with you for so long) and "Kraut und Rüben" (Cabbage and Turnips) - unfurling them majestically over an elaboration of the bass line from the Aria. The work closes with a return of that initial Aria, reminding the listener of just how miraculous the stream of invention that has flowed from it over the past hour or so has been. John Mangum is the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Program Designer/ Annotator.

Johann Sebastian Bach: Goldberg Variations - DVD A-Z DVD - Arthaus Musik Johann Sebastian Bach Live recording from Villa Trissoni-Marzotto, Italy, 2006 Soloists: Andrea Bacchetti (piano) Director: Gian Andrea Lodovici DVD Specials: Including a CD recording of the GOLDBERG VARIATIONS The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, are a set of 30 variations for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach. First published in 1741 as the fourth in a series Bach called Clavier-Übung, ("keyboard practice"), the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form. It is named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may have been the first performer. Label: Arthaus Musik Dave's J.S.

Bach Works Catalog - Keyboard Works - The Goldberg Variations Liner-Notes by Ralph Kirkpatrick from his classic 1958 recording on Archive Production The "Goldberg" Variations were first published in 1742 by Balthasar Schmid in Nürnberg under the modest title: "Keyboard-practice, consisting of an Aria with different variations for the harpsichord with two manuals. Prepared for the enjoyment of music-lovers by Johann Sebastian Bach, Polish royal and Saxon electoral court-composer, director and choir-master in Leipzig.' The Aria appears as a Sarabande in Anna Magdalena Bach's note-book of the year 1725. About the composition of these variations, Forkel 1) tells the following story, which, for all its doubtful character, has permanently attached to them the name of Bach's pupil, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg.

"For this model, upon which all sets of variations should be formed (although for comprehensible reasons not a single set has yet been thus made), we have to thank the instigation of the former Russian ambassador to the electoral court of Saxony, Count Keyserlingk, who often stopped in Leipzig and brought there with him the aforementioned Goldberg, in order to have him given musical instruction by Bach. The Count was often ill an a sleepless nights. At such times, Goldberg, who lived in his house, had to spend the night in an antechamber, so as to play for him during his insomnia. Once the Count mentioned in Bach's presence that he would like to have some clavier pieces for Goldberg, which should be of such a smooth and somewhat lively character that he might be a little cheered up by them in his sleepless nights. Bach thought himself best able to fulfill this wish by means of variations, the writing of which he had until then considered an ungrateful task on account of the repeatedly similar harmonic foundation. Thereafter the Count always called them his variations.

He never was tired of them, and for a long time during sleepless nights he meant: 'Dear Goldberg, do play me one of my variations.' Bach was perhaps never so rewarded for one of his works as for this. The Count presented him with a golden goblet filled with 100 louis-d'or. Nevertheless, even had the gift been a thousand times larger, their artistic value would not yet have been paid for." Like an enormous passacaglia, these variations reiterate the harmonic implications of the same bass in thirty different forms. This fundamental bass is never stated entirely in its most elemental form not even in the Aria. But on this harmonic skeleton and around it are constructed the variations, each highly organized and composed of independent thematic material. These follow one another in a symmetrical grouping like the beads of a rosary. The form of the variations as a whole may be shown by comparison, as before, to that of a rosary, or perhaps better explained by an architectural analogy; Framed as if between two terminal pylons, one formed by the Aria and the first two variations, the other by the two penultimate variations and the Quodlibet, the variations are grouped like the members of an elaborate colonnade.

The groups are composed of a canon and' an elaborate two-manual arabesque, enclosing in each case another variation of independent character. Following upon the pylon-like group which terminates this rhythmic procession, the Aria repeated closes the great circle. There are nine canons, at intervals successively from the unison to the ninth, those at the fourth and fifth in contrary motion, that at the ninth without any independent third voice, such as accompanies the others. Among the variable forms are to be found a fughetta, a French overture, florid slow movements, etc. The Quodlibet mixes together the tunes of two folk-songs: "Ich bin so lang nicht bei dir g'west. Ruck her, ruck her, ruck her." and: "Kraut und Räben haben mich vertrieben, hätt' mein' Mutter Fleisch gekocht, so wär' ich länger blieben." These might be translated thus: "I've not been with you for so long. Come closer, closer, closer." "Beets and spinach drove me far away.

Had my mother cooked some meat, then I'd have stayed much longer." The following passage from the preface to my edition of the Goldberg Variations, published by G. Schirmer, New York, represents a kind of writing which I feel should not ordinarily be indulged. It was written nearly twenty-five years before the making of the present recording. Yet in the intervening time, despite modifications in the interpretation of a few variations, my sentiments have not fundamentally changed. "However much it is an act of impudence thus to discuss something which is far too profound and complex to be grasped in words, it seems necessary to confess some of the feelings which inevitably come with the playing of this music. The Aria seems to foreshadow the spirit of the whole work through the tenderness and calm with which the solemnity of the fundamental bass is clothed at its initial appearance. The first variation stands like a festive gateway leading to the inner world exposed in the following three variations. These, like so many of the canons and the Aria, have an unearthly pure sweetness and a lyricism in every phrase that makes one long to dissolve one's fingers, the instrument, and one's whole self into three or four singing voices.

For a moment this quiet lyricism is interrupted by the shining smooth swiftness of the first arabesque variation (5). Then comes a second canon of an almost nostalgic tenderness; then a faraway scherzo (7) of the utmost lightness and delicacy. The following arabesque and canon return to a lyricism which is interrupted by the brusque roughness of the Fughetta (10). This is followed by the delicate network of the third arabesque and the sunny canon at the fourth. Then comes a flute aria (13) of a breath-taking quiet pure joy. The humour of the fourth arabesque makes even more striking the appearance of the dark tragic canon at the fifth which ends the first half of the variations. The second half opens with a majestic French Overture (16), followed by one of the lightest of the arabesque variations. In the sixth canon and the lute-variation (19) we return to a lyric sweetness like that of the beginning, even more peaceful. Another scherzo arabesque contrasts with the sombre seventh canon, which in turn joins on to the alla breve variation (22).

This, for all its quicker tempo, transforms the chromatic pathos of the canon into that kind of serene chastened joy which follows pain. In the seventh arabesque we burst forth in the most unrestrained exuberant joy, which is tranquilized in the gentle rocking of the canon at the octave. Again we are interrupted to be carried to even greater tragic heights on the waves of a quiet yet irresistibly passionate aria. From the eighth arabesque (26) on, the variations mount through a sprightly canon, glittering trills (28), and waltz-like bravura (29) to the final jubilant climax in the Quodlibet (30), upon which the repetition of the Aria falls like a benediction, But for all their lyricism and tragic passion and exuberance, the Aria and the Variations seem of a divine substance entirely refined and purified of anything personal or ignoble, so that in playing them one seems only the unworthy mouthpiece of a higher voice.

But how Bach himself in pious humility would ridicule these high-sounding words of ours with a wry face and with god-like laughter: 'Kraut und Rüben...'" Ralph Kirkpatrick 1) Uber Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst und Kunstwerke, IX (1802).

Question: Who composed a set of 30 variations for the harpsichord which he named the "Goldberg Variations"?
Answer: J.S. BACH