Members can find here three of the warmest interpretations of the Aria on record. Sanity (or taste) is not statistical. Still, if you feel one of the three superb musicians’ - Gould, Massini and Barenboim – renditions touches you in any way, kindly share it with us. The “why” is not necessary – but can be always enlightening and amusing.
The Goldberg Variations
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I have the Goldberg Variations in my album collection, and this has me intending to play them this afternoon.
I may have read this subject before, but do you have the history of Bach's Brandenberg Concerti you might want to present to educate fellows like me who only have a passing familiarity with the history of Bach's music?
The Goldberg Variations
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form. The Variations are named after Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who may have been the first performer.
The tale of how the variations came to be composed comes from an early biography of Bach 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.
Aria
The aria is a sarabande in ¾ time, and features a heavily ornamented melody:
http://youtu.be/Gv94m_S3QDo
http://youtu.be/yFupTT9RauQ
http://youtu.be/AcXXkcZ2jWM