The once-accepted origins of one of the keyboard literature’s iconic large scale works involved a commission for Johann Sebastian Bach to compose a work aimed to ward off Count Hermann Carl von Keyselingk’s insomnia. Then, during sleepless nights, the Count would summon his trusty teenage court harpsichordist Johann Gottlieb Goldberg and make him play several variations.
We now know that this particular Goldberg Variations back story is not true. Yet there’s no uncertainty about the work’s steadily increasing popularity with harpsichordists, pianists, arrangers and music lovers, both live and on disc.
Loosely based upon a G Major aria from the Second Anna Magdalena Notebook, the Goldbergs’ opening theme is anchored by a strong bass line that provides the harmonic skeleton for each of the thirty variations to follow. Bach organizes the variations in ten groups of three, each containing a variation specifically designed for the harpsichord’s two keyboard manuals, a variation in free style, and a strict two-voice canon. The canons usually are supported by an obbligato bass line. However, the structure itself would hold no interest had Bach not filled it with some of his most imaginative, entertaining, technically challenging and profound keyboard writing.
The composer’s melodic genius permeates even the wildest, most unbuttoned virtuosic variations, as well as in the lyrical, highly ornamented Variation 13. The three minor key variations find Bach’s subtle harmonic brain operating at full capacity, especially in the so-called “Black Pearl” Variation 25’s aching chromaticism. There’s also a vigorous Fughetta (Variation 10), a grandiose French Overture (Variation 16), and a Quodlibet (Variation 30) that interweaves a few popular ditties of Bach’s time. The opening Aria repeats at the end to bring Bach’s tour-de-force full circle.
Wanda Landowska made the Goldbergs’ premier recording in 1933, and it still crackles with life. However “inauthentic” her custom-built Pleyel harpsichord sounds in the context of today’s historically informed performances, her pioneering scholarship and passionate musicality wielded considerable influence. Gustav Leonhardt’s leaner toned, musically direct versions include an excellent stereo recording for Deutsche Harmonia Mundi in 1976.
Taking all repeats, Igor Kipnis’ extroversion and provocative ornamentation add up to an entertaining epic that either will enthrall or exasperate. Among modern digital editions, one won’t go wrong with Kenneth Gilbert’s judicious choice of repeats, generally fleet, dance-oriented tempi and warmly resonant sonics.
When one thinks of the Goldbergs and the piano, Glenn Gould’s name immediately comes up, and for good reason. Rhythmic verve and dry-point sonority cannot be mistaken for anyone else. What is more, Gould knocked the Goldbergs off their pedestal and made the music fun, probably for the first time since 1742. Gould was influenced by Rosalyn Tureck, who was anything but fun, but whose contrapuntal acumen and minute tonal gradations are best displayed in a live 1982 private performance chez William F. Buckley (VAI).
More conventional yet no less imaginative, Ekaterina Dershavina brings joyous energy, cumulative momentum and wide arsenal of articulations to her nourishing Goldbergs table, while Jeno Jando shapes each variation as a separate entity, with a brisker, more business-like approach to the often emoted minor key variations. The spirit of the dance informs Angela Hewitt’s effortless, immaculately controlled polyphonic playing, although her Goldbergs usually turn out to be more propulsive and playful in concert.
While her recording earned spectacular press attention when it was released in 2007, Simone Dinnerstein bears an earnest pianism in the Goldbergs that hits and misses. No consistent agenda governs the pianist’s inclusion of certain repeats over others, while her mostly tedious slow playing blurs the fine line between self-effacement and self-denial. Yet her brilliantly dispatched cross-handed variations are absolutely breathtaking. She speaks articulately about her passion for the Goldbergs:
However, Murray Perahia's stylish intelligence, full observance of repeats, and boundless nuance propel him to the head of the (piano) Goldberg Parthenon. Each variation conveys its own character; the witty ornamentation wears well; and his carefully unified tempo relationships between variations ensure larger-scaled dramatic arcs, adding up to a consistently satisfying whole. Gould may be essential, but Perahia's superbly engineered achievement is the point of reference for contemporary listeners.
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by Jed Distler
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