A Particular View On Goldberg Variations, Bwv 988 By Johann Sebastian Bach

BWV 988, Goldberg Variations, are an unsurpassed model for contrapuntal composition. However, in this article, I would like to point to a different facet of this work.

While the perfection of the canons is often emphasized by music theoreticians and analysts, the most crucial aspect of the work, in my mind, is the instrumental extravaganza. Those variations are akin the transcendental studies (by Liszt) of their time. They expand and raise the keyboard virtuosity to degrees never conceived of before.

In this work, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the most fantastic and outrageous keyboard idioms of his time, and he pushed the existing ones to their limits. Visionary hand choreography (in variations number 5, 20 and 26), double thirds and sixths (in variation number 23) double trills (variation 28), alternating chords (variation 29) and many other keyboard acrobatics make this work one of the greatest instrumental achievements of musical history together with the above-mentioned studies by Liszt or the "Three Movements from Petrouchka" by Stravinsky.

Contrapuntal music writing (fugues and canons) has an aura of seriousness and almost religiousness. This dates back to the romantic epoch. After having been forgotten for a century or so, when Bach was "discovered" by Mendelssohn, he was seen as the musician par-excellence for the salvation of romantically tormented souls.

The prominence of Johann Sebastian Bach's church-commissioned and religious compositions and his own personality overshadowed his profane and purely instrumental works. In all his compositions, there is a "tradition" to seek Divine Signs and connections to the Holy Scriptures. This so called tradition led to such insanities as the research of divine numerology in his fugues, the discovery of the Holy Trinity when a voice jumps a step of third and other ridiculous things. The religious sensibility in his Masses, Cantatas and Passions has been extrapolated to all his other works.

Religion, for Bach, was a normal and natural part of his life. He was not just hired and commissioned by religious authority to compose music, but he was a man who deeply and sincerely practiced Lutheranism. However, he was a true composer in the sense that he had the aspirations and the artistry to compose a wide variety of music.

Although J. S. Bach never composed operas, probably because no one hired him for that and because such works might have offended his Lutheran community, he was certainly capable of doing the best of it as well. His operas might have rivaled those of Handel and Rameau.

It is wrong to view Bach's fugues and canons as pure intellectual music. The joy is not so much in the analysis of their forms, but in listening and performing them. In our days, after centuries of mostly homophonic music we have almost forgotten how simply enjoyable are the musical forms of canons and fugues.

By captivating the mind first with an appealing theme and then leading it through contrapuntal mazes, one can almost easily accomplish, if not good, at least decent music. When the Bach family gathered on Christmas evenings they sang improvised canons to have the fun. I believe those music analysts who stress almost exclusively the perfectionism of the counterpoint in Bach's work and specially the canons in the Goldberg variations are missing a point.

Today, it is possible to produce the most complicated counterpoint in less than a second with a properly programmed computer. It is a simple matter of following rules to construct a perfect canon of scholarly fugue. The genius of Bach is revealed in the places where he deviated from the rules and there are many. Every composer knows (even if some would never admit it) that the most difficult compositions are free-form ones. A simple melody, like the Aria of the variations, is actually much more difficult to compose than a six voice straight fugue. This is why I find that the free-form variations (numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29) reveal more of the composer's genius.

Still more striking examples are the Aria and variations 13 and 25. It is also worth noting where the most dramatic slow variations, number 13 and the Adagio, number 25, are placed in the whole set.

The complete set of variations is divided into two main sections: first the Aria up to variation 15 and the variation 16, which is a sort of re-start to the end. The numbers 13 and 25, which are the emotional climaxes of the whole work, are placed in strategically symmetrical positions.

For the framework of the composition Bach chose to alternate one interlude and one canon all based on the harmonic model of the previously presented Aria. Practically minded as ever, that seemed to him to be the most entertaining form. There is no shame and should be no fear in using the word "entertaining" here. In the hands of J. S. Bach, an entertaining form such as a canon would assuredly turn out to be a masterwork.

The Goldberg Variations stand high in the history of keyboard music for it's a revolutionary instrumental accomplishment, alongside the innovative studies of Chopin and Liszt or Igor Stravinsky's Petrouchka. Just like the Studies by Chopin and Liszt or the Petrouchka Suite by Stravinsky, The Goldberg Variations are of this kind of music which broadens and revolutionizes the instrumental idioms of their time.