Program notes harpsichordist by the name of Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (1727-1756). Keyserlingk was friendly with Bach and his family; his daughter had This magnificent work, the sole example on this program from Bach’s studied with Friedemann Bach in Dresden. The count was instrumental later music, hints at the complexity and grandeur we will experience as in securing for Bach the title of Court Composer to the King of Poland this Bach Festival progresses. and the Dresden court in 1736. Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major, “St. Anne” BWV 552
Published in 1739 as Part III of Bach's Clavier-Übung (roughly translated: Keyboard Exercises or Keyboard Practice), the "St. Anne" Prelude and Fugue comprise the bookends for 25 organ chorales. Collectively, they are regarded as one of Bach's finest achievements for organ. Ironically, “St. Anne” was the only Prelude and Fugue for organ published during Bach's lifetime. The fugue acquired its nickname in England because its subject is the same as the hymn, "O God, Our Help in Ages Past," attributed to William Croft (1678-1727), the organist at St. Anne's church in London. Bach based his Fugue on the analogous German chorale, "Was mein Gott will." So what is an organ work doing on a piano recital?
The story behind the commissioning of the variation is charming, but probably not true. Keyserlingk was an insomniac. Forkel reported that Bach composed the variations for Goldberg to play for Keyserlingk, who wanted to hear music that was "soothing and cheerful" on nights when he could not sleep. Scant biographical information has come down to us about Goldberg, but it is likely that Count Keyserlingk brought him from his native Danzig to Dresden about 1736, after which the count may have sent him to Leipzig to study with the elder Bach. A keyboard prodigy, Goldberg apparently worked for the Count until 1745, and then again for two years starting in 1749. He must have been a stunningly gifted player to execute Bach’s variations in 1741 when he was only fourteen years old. We do know that Bach visited Dresden in November 1741 and stayed with Keyserlingk. There is no dedication on the Variations, however. The traditional tale of the variations may thus be apocryphal, but Goldberg certainly earned a measure of immortality as the work’s first performer.
Aria with 30 variations for two-manual harpsichord, BWV 988. The Goldberg Variations (1741) form the fourth and final part of Bach’s Clavier-Übung cycle, which began with the first keyboard Partita in 1726. Although it is not specifically numbered as part four, the title-page shares the same format as the first three parts, and is likewise dedicated to ‘music-lovers.’
So begins John Butt’s article on the Goldberg Variations in the Oxford Composer Companions: J.S. Bach, a one-volume encyclopedia on all things pertaining to Bach’s life, contemporaries, community, and compositions. Those few lines tell us a great deal, yet they also raise many questions. How does one have an aria without a singer? If Bach composed this work for a two-manual harpsichord, why are we hearing it on the piano? What does Clavier-Übung mean? What works are in the other three parts of that Clavier-Übung? What did Bach mean by "music-lovers"? Bach's thirty "different variations" are not variants on the richly ornamented theme unfolding above. Instead, they derive from the left hand notes in the first eight measures. This bass line undergirds the aria above and becomes the governing premise of variations. Bach’s Goldberg Variations have become something of a cult piece because of the two legendary recordings on modern piano made by the late Glenn Gould. Bach, of course, composed the work for harpsichord. According to Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Bach’s first biographer, the work was commissioned by Count Hermann Carl von Keyserlingk, the Russian envoy to the Electoral Court at Dresden and the Prussian court of Frederick the Great [see sidebar]. A dedicated music lover, he established a household in Neustadt filled with music, including a resident
Bach had not composed a substantial set of variations in many years, but he certainly knew the variations of his contemporaries: Corelli, Rameau, Handel, and others. Aria or Theme Bach’s full title is Clavier-Übung that translates to “Keyboard Practice.” The subtitle elaborates: “consisting of an Aria with different variations for the harpsichord with 2 manuals prepared for the enjoyment of musiclovers by Johann Sebastian Bach.” One would assume that the "theme" for these variations is the aria, and it is–sort of. The term "aria" did not exclusively connote an opera or cantata aria as it does today. It could also designate an independent instrumental piece, often in strophic form with a recurring bass line. That is the type of aria that serves as Bach’s first movement, and which he repeats in its entirety to conclude the Goldberg Variations. The Aria’s elaborate, French-style embellishments are essential to the intricate character of the melody.
F E S T I V A L
"Goldberg" Variations, BWV 988 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
The aria consists of 32 bars in binary form, in a slow triple meter like a sarabande. Some scholars have suggested that Bach borrowed the original theme from a dance by a French composer; however, the elegant ornamentation and figuration are very much his own. In any case, music has had a long history of composers adopting other composers’ themes, working magic with their creative variations: Handel’s "Harmonious Blacksmith" Variations, Beethoven’s "Diabelli" Variations, Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Haydn all come to mind. Folk songs and popular tunes had already provided variation material for many composers for more than a century before Bach.
B A C H
succeeds it with a four-part double fugue on a new subject combined with the original subject. Not content with that, he moves to a fivepart double fugue on a third subject in combination with the original. We are left agape at his mastery, the more so since the music is so compelling.
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Piano virtuosi have long been attracted to music for organ. Two turnof-the-century masters were riveted by Bach’s “St. Anne” pair. Both Ferruccio Busoni and Max Reger transcribed BWV 552 for solo piano, undaunted by the challenge of a work Bach specified pro Organo pleno (for full organ) in his manuscript. The English pianist Leonard Borwick (1868-1925) published a transcription of the Prelude for piano solo in The theme–or aria, as Bach called it–was written substantially earlier than 1911. Mr. Lifschitz plays his own arrangement. the variations, appearing in the second Clavierbüchlein (1725) for Bach’s second wife, Anna Magdalena. Subsequent research has shown that she It is not difficult to grasp a pianist’s attraction to this dignified, lofty, probably added it to the notebook at about the same time that Bach was grand work. The second movement, in particular, is mind-boggling in working on the Goldberg Variations, in 1738 and 1739. its contrapuntal intricacy. Bach opens with a five-part fugue, and then
Bach’s thirty "different variations" are disquisitions on the bass line, rather than variants on that richly ornamented theme unfolding above. The bass line notes of the first eight measures of the piece undergird the aria above and become the governing premise for all thirty variations. When Bach writes a canon–every third variation in the Goldberg set– the two imitative voices interact above some form of that bass line. Its 36th season 2011-2012
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