Johann Sebastian Bach

Goldberg Variations

The Goldberg Variations (), BWV 988, is a musical composition for keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of thirty variations. First published in 1741, it is named after

Composition#

The story of how the variations came to be composed comes from an early biography of Bach by Johann Nikolaus Forkel: 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 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. contends that the Forkel story is entirely spurious. Arnold Schering has suggested that the aria on which the variations are based was not written by Bach. More recent scholarly literature (such as the edition by Christoph Wolff) suggests that there is no basis for such doubts.

Publication#

Rather unusually for Bach’s works, the Goldberg Variations were published in his own lifetime, in 1741. The publisher was Bach’s friend Balthasar Schmid of Nuremberg. Schmid printed the work by making engraved copper plates (rather than using movable type); thus the notes of the first edition are in Schmid’s own handwriting. The title page, shown in the figure above, reads in German: : The term “Clavier Ubung” (nowadays spelled “Klavierübung”) had been assigned by Bach to some of his previous keyboard works. Klavierübung part 1 was the six partitas, part 2 the Italian Concerto and French Overture, and part 3 a series of chorale preludes for organ framed by a prelude and fugue in E major. Although Bach also called his variations “Klavierübung”, he did not specifically designate them as the fourth in this series. Nineteen copies of the first edition survive today. Of these, the most valuable is the (Bach’s personal copy of the published score), discovered in 1974 in Strasbourg by the French musicologist Olivier Alain and now kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. This copy includes printing corrections made by the composer and additional music in the form of fourteen canons on the Goldberg ground (see below). The nineteen printed copies provide virtually the only information available to modern editors trying to reconstruct Bach’s intent, as the autograph (handwritten) score has not survived. A handwritten copy of just the aria is found in the 1725 Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. Christoph Wolff suggests on the basis of handwriting evidence that Anna Magdalena copied the aria from the autograph score around 1740; it appears on two pages previously left blank.

Instrumentation#

On the title page, Bach specified that the work was intended for harpsichord. It is widely performed on this instrument today, though there are also a great number of performances on the piano (see Discography below). The piano was rare in Bach’s day and there is no indication that Bach would have either approved or disapproved of performing the variations on this instrument. Bach’s specification is, more precisely, a two-manual harpsichord, and he indicated in the score which variations ought to be played using one hand on each manual: Variations 8, 11, 13, 14, 17, 20, 23, 25, 26, 27 and 28 are specified for two manuals, while variations 5, 7 and 29 are specified as playable with either one or two. With greater difficulty, the work can nevertheless be played on a single-manual harpsichord or piano.

Form#

After a statement of the aria at the beginning of the piece, there are thirty variations. The variations do not follow the melody of the aria, but rather use its bass line () and chord progression. The bass line is notated by harpsichordist and musicologist Ralph Kirkpatrick in his performing edition as follows. \relative \key g \major \clef bass \omit Staff.TimeSignature \repeat volta 2 g1 fis^“6” e^“3,5,6♯” d b^“6” c^“3,5,6” d g, \break g’ fis^“6” e a^"♯" fis^“6” g^“6” a^"♯" d, \break \repeat volta 2 d’ b^“6” c^“6” b^"♯" g^“6” a^“3,5,6” b^"♯" e, \break c^“6” b^“6” a d g, c^“3,5,6” d g, The digits above the notes indicate the specified chord in the system of figured bass; where digits are separated by comma (stacked vertically in a proper figured bass), they indicate seventh chords in first inversion. Every third variation in the series of 30 is a canon, following an ascending pattern. Thus, variation 3 is a canon at the unison, variation 6 is a canon at the second (the second entry begins the interval of a second above the first), variation 9 is a canon at the third, and so on until variation 27, which is a canon at the ninth. The final variation, instead of being the expected canon in the tenth, is a quodlibet, discussed below. As Kirkpatrick has pointed out, the variations that intervene between the canons are also arranged in a pattern. If we leave aside the initial and final material of the work (specifically, the Aria, the first two variations, the Quodlibet, and the aria da capo), the remaining material is arranged as follows. The variations found just after each canon are genre pieces of various types, among them three Baroque dances (4, 7, 19); a fughetta (10); a French overture (16); two ornate arias for the right hand (13, 25); and others (22, 28). The variations located two after each canon (5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, and 29) are what Kirkpatrick calls “arabesques”; they are variations in lively tempo with a great deal of hand-crossing. This ternary pattern—canon, genre piece, arabesque—is repeated a total of nine times, until the Quodlibet breaks the cycle. All the variations are in G major, apart from variations 15, 21, and 25, which are in G minor. At the end of the thirty variations, Bach writes Aria da Capo e fine, meaning that the performer is to return to the beginning (“da capo”) and play the aria again before concluding.

Aria#

The aria is a sarabande in time, and features a heavily ornamented melody: \new PianoStaff > » The French style of ornamentation suggests that the ornaments are supposed to be parts of the melody; however, some performers (for example Wilhelm Kempff on piano) omit some or all ornaments and present the aria unadorned. Williams opines that this is not the theme at all, but actually the first variation (a view emphasising the idea of the work as a chaconne rather than a piece in true variation form).

Variatio 1. a 1 Clav.#

This sprightly variation contrasts markedly with the slow, contemplative mood of the aria. The rhythm in the right hand forces the emphasis on the second beat, giving rise to syncopation from bars 1 to 7. Hands cross at bar 13 from the upper register to the lower, bringing back this syncopation for another two bars. In the first two bars of the B part, the rhythm mirrors that of the beginning of the A part, but after this a different idea is introduced. Williams sees this as a sort of polonaise. The characteristic rhythm in the left hand is also found in Bach’s Partita No. 3 for solo violin, in the A major prelude from the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, and in the D minor prelude of the second book. Heinz Niemüller also mentions the polonaise character of this variation.

Variatio 2. a 1 Clav.#

This is a simple three-part contrapuntal piece in time, two voices engage in constant motivic interplay over an incessant bass line. Each section has an alternate ending to be played on the first and second repeat.

Variatio 3. Canone all’Unisono. a 1 Clav.#

The first of the regular canons, this is a canon at the unison: the follower begins on the same note as the leader, a bar later. As with all canons of the Goldberg Variations (except the 27th variation, canon at the ninth), there is a supporting bass line. The time signature of and the many sets of triplets suggest a kind of a simple dance.

Variatio 4. a 1 Clav.#

Like the passepied, a Baroque dance movement, this variation is in time with a preponderance of quaver rhythms. Bach uses close but not exact imitation: the musical pattern in one part reappears a bar later in another (sometimes inverted). \new PianoStaff > \new Staff > » Each repeated section has alternate endings for the first or second time.

Variatio 5. a 1 ô vero 2 Clav.#

This is the first of the hand-crossing, two-part variations; the title means “for one or two manuals”. The movement is written in time. A rapid melodic line predominantly in sixteenth notes is accompanied by another melody with longer note values, which features very wide leaps: \new PianoStaff > The Italian type of hand-crossing such as is frequently found in the sonatas of Scarlatti is employed here, with one hand constantly moving back and forth between high and low registers while the other hand stays in the middle of the keyboard, playing the fast passages.

Variatio 6. Canone alla Seconda. a 1 Clav.#

The sixth variation is a canon at the second: the follower starts a major second higher than the leader. The piece is based on a descending scale and is in time. Kirkpatrick describes this piece as having “an almost nostalgic tenderness”. Each section has an alternate ending to be played on the first and second repeat.

Variatio 7. a 1 ô vero 2 Clav. al tempo di Giga#

The variation is in meter, suggesting several possible Baroque dances. In 1974, when scholars discovered Bach’s own copy of the first printing of the Goldberg Variations, they noted that over this variation Bach had added the heading al tempo di Giga. But the implications of this discovery for modern performance have turned out to be less clear than was at first assumed. In his book The Keyboard Music of J. S. Bach the scholar and keyboardist David Schulenberg notes that the discovery “surprised twentieth-century commentators who supposed gigues were always fast and fleeting.” However, “despite the Italian terminology giga , this is a less fleet French gigue.” Indeed, he notes, the dotted rhythmic pattern of this variation (pictured) is very similar to that of the gigue from Bach’s second French suite and the gigue of the French Overture. This kind of gigue is known as a “Canary”, based on the rhythm of a dance which originated from the Canary islands. \new PianoStaff > He concludes, “It need not go quickly.” Moreover, Schulenberg adds that the “numerous short trills and appoggiaturas” preclude too fast a tempo. The pianist Angela Hewitt, in the liner notes to her 1999 Hyperion recording, argues that by adding the al tempo di giga notation, Bach was trying to caution against taking too slow a tempo, and thus turning the dance into a forlane or siciliano. She does however argue, like Schulenberg, that it is a French gigue, not an Italian giga and does play it at an unhurried tempo.

Variatio 8. a 2 Clav.#

This is another two-part hand-crossing variation, in time. The French style of hand-crossing such as is found in the clavier works of François Couperin is employed, with both hands playing at the same part of the keyboard, one above the other. This is relatively easy to perform on a two-manual harpsichord, but quite difficult to do on a piano. Most bars feature either a distinctive pattern of eleven sixteenth notes and a sixteenth rest, or ten sixteenth notes and a single eighth note. Large leaps in the melody occur. Both sections end with descending passages in thirty-second notes.

Variatio 9. Canone alla Terza. a 1 Clav.#

This is a canon at the third, in time. The supporting bass line is slightly more active than in the previous canons.

Variatio 10. Fughetta. a 1 Clav.#

Variation 10 is a four-voice fughetta, with a four-bar subject heavily decorated with ornaments and somewhat reminiscent of the opening aria’s melody. \new PianoStaff > \new Staff > » The exposition takes up the whole first section of this variation (pictured). First the subject is stated in the bass, starting on the G below middle C. The answer (in the tenor) enters in bar 5, but it’s a tonal answer, so some of the intervals are altered. The soprano voice enters in bar 9, but only keeps the first two bars of the subject intact, changing the rest. The final entry occurs in the alto in bar 13. There is no regular counter-subject in this fugue. The second section develops using the same thematic material with slight changes. It resembles a counter-exposition: the voices enter one by one, all begin by stating the subject (sometimes a bit altered, like in the first section). The section begins with the subject heard once again, in the soprano voice, accompanied by an active bass line, making the bass part the only exception since it doesn’t pronounce the subject until bar 25.

Variatio 11. a 2 Clav.#

This is a virtuosic two-part toccata in time. Specified for two manuals, it is largely made up of various scale passages, arpeggios and trills, and features much hand-crossing of different kinds.

Variatio 12. a 1 Clav. Canone alla Quarta in moto contrario#

This is a canon at the fourth in time, of the inverted variety: the follower enters in the second bar in contrary motion to the leader. In the first section, the left hand accompanies with a bass line written out in repeated quarter notes, in bars 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7. This repeated note motif also appears in the first bar of the second section (bar 17, two Ds and a C), and, slightly altered, in bars 22 and 23. In the second section, Bach changes the mood slightly by introducing a few appoggiaturas (bars 19 and 20) and trills (bars 29–30).

Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach