*Glenn Gould "Excerpted from liner notes for the 1955 album

The Goldberg Variations, one of the monuments of keyboard literature, was published in 1792 while Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) held the title of Polish Royal and Saxon electoral court-composer. His apparent apathy toward the variation form provokes considerable curiosity as to the origin of this composition. Such curiosity, however, must remain unsatisfied for any data extant in Bach's time has long been obscured by his romantic biographers, who sucummbed to the allure of a legend which is difficult to disprove. Briefly, the story concerns a commission which was tendered to Bach by a Count Kaiseling, the Russian ambassador to the Saxon Court, who had as his musician-in-serve Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, one of the master's most accomplished pupils. Kaiserling, it seems, was frequently troubled with insomnia, and requested Bach to write some reposeful keyboard pieces which Goldberg could perform as asoporific. If the treatment was a success, we are left with some doubt as to the authenticity of Master Goldberg's rendition of this incisive and piquant score.
@The most casual acquaintance with this work | a first hearing, or a brief glance at the score | will manifest the baffling incongruity between the imposing dimensions of the variations and the unassuming Sarabande which concieved them. We are accustomed to consider at least one of two prerequisites indispensable to an air for variations: a theme with a melodic curve which veritably entreats ornamentation, or an harmonic basis, stripped to its fundamentals, pregnant with promise and capacity for exhaustive exploitation. The latter method, by stimulating linear inventiveness, suggests a certain analogy with the passacaille style of reiterated bass progression. However, the vast majority of significant contributions to this form cannot be accurately allotted to either of these clssifications, which rather describe the extremities of the working premise of the variation idea, wherein the coalescence of these qualities constitutes the real challenge to the composer's inventive power.
@The goldberg Variations utilize the Sarabande from Anna Magdalena Bach's notebook as a passacaille | that is, only its bass progression is duplicated in the variations, where indeed it ia treated with sufficient rhythmic flexibility to meet the harmonic contingencies of such diverse contrapuntal structures as a canon upon every degree of the diatonic scale, two fughettas, and even a quodlibet (the superposition of street-songs popular in Bach's time). Such alternations as are necessary do not in any way impair hte gravitational compulsion which this masterfully proportioned ground exerts upon the wealth of melodic figurations which subsequently adorn it. Indeed, this noble bass binds each variations with the inexorable assurance of its own inevitability.
@One might expect that in view of the constancy of the harmonic foundation the principal pursuit of the variations would be the illumination of the motivic facts within the melodic complex of the Aria theme. However, such is not the case, for the thematic substance, a docile but richly embellished soprano line, possesses an intrinsic homogeneity which bequeathes nothing to posterity and which, so far as motivic representation is concerned, is totally forgotten during the thirty variations. In short, it is singularly self-sufficient little air which seems to shun the patriarchal demeanour, to remain totally uninquisitive as to its raison d'etre.
@Nothing could better demonstrate the aloof carriage of the Aria, than the precipitous outburst of Variation 1 which abruptly curtails the preceeding tranquility. With Variation 2 we have the first instance of the confluence of these juxtaposed qualities | that curious hybrid of clement composure and cogent command which typifies the virile ego of the Goldberg.
@With Variation 3 begin the canons which subsequently occupy every htird segment of the work. Ralph Kirkpatrick has imaginatively represented the variations by an architectural analogy. "Framed as if between two terminal pylons, one formed by the aria and the first two variations, the other by the two penultimate variations and the quodlibet, the variations are grouped like the members of an elaborate colonnade. The groups are composed of a canon and an elaborate two-manual arabesque, enclosing in each case another variation of an independent character."
@In the canons, the literal imitation confined to the two upper voices, while the accompanying part, which is present in all but the final canon at the ninth, is left free to convert the tema del basso, in most cases at least, to a suitably acquiescent complement.
@Intense contrapunctal preoccupation is not solely the property of the canonic variation. Many of those numbers of "independent character" expand minute thematic cells into an elaborate linear texture. One thinks especially of the fugal conclusion to the French overture(16), the alla breve(22), and of Variation 4 in which a blunt rusticity disguises an urban maze of stretti.
@Since the aria melody as aforementioned, evades intercourse with the rest of the work, the individual variations voraciously consumes the potentialof a motivic germ peculiar to it, thus exercising an entirely subjective aspect of the variation concept. As a consequence of this integration there exist, with the dubious exceptions of Variations 28 and 29, not one instance of motivic collaboration or extension between successive variations.
@In the two-part texture of the "arabesques" the emphasis on virtuosic display restricts the contrapunctal endeavour to less ingenious pursuits such as that of inverting the consequent rejoinder.
@With renewed vigour, Variations 26 to 29 break upon us and are followed by that boisterous exhibition of Deutsche Freundlichkeit | the quodlibet. Then, as though it could no longer suppress a smug smile at the progress of its progeny, the original Sarabande, anything but a dutiful parent, returns to us to bask in the reflected glory of an Aria da capo.