Goldberg Variations

Composed—according to the title page—“for the soul’s delight of music lovers”, the Goldberg Variations constitute the single largest keyboard composition of the 18th century, and the most iconic set before Beethoven’s all-embracing Diabelli Variations. Liszt played them early in his career; Brahms (predictably) was a huge admirer. The starting point is a spacious “Aria”, whose sturdy harmonic contours are the real engine of what follows. Thirty-two bars secure the foundations on which Bach builds an edifice of strikingly ingenious design. (Including the “Aria” and its concluding repeat, there are, incidentally, also 32 movements). The 30 variations are grouped into 10 parcels of three, in which the first displays the characteristics of a dance, the third is a canon, whilst the second usually involves a deal of hand-crossing banter. Along the way, Bach nods to many genres and contrives a further subdivision by inserting a French-style “Ouverture” at the half-way point. “Variations 28 & 29” turn up the virtuosic heat, whilst the last variation diffuses the loftiness with rampant knock-about humour. Instead of the expected canon, Bach settles on a “Quodlibet”, a family speciality in which several tunes are shoehorned together. Thus, at the climax of the eminently serious Goldbergs the “Arias” harmony allows him to smuggle in at least two popular songs: “I’ve Been So Long Away From You”, and that anthem to German vegetarianism, “Cabbages and Beets Have Driven Me Away, Had My Mother Cooked Meat I Might Have Stayed Longer.”