*Ralph Kirkpatrick "Excerpts from the Preface to The Goldberg Variations"

　The Aria antedates the Variations by a number of years. It appears as a Sarabande in Anna Magdalena Bach's notebook of the year 1725. The Variations have commonly born the name of Bach's pupil Johann Gottlieb Goldberg ever since J.N.Forkel, Bach's first biographer, told the following story of the origin:
　"For this model, upon which all sets of variations should be formed (although for comprehensible reasons not a single set has yet been thus made), we have to thank the instigation of the former Russian ambassador to the electoral court of Saxony, Count Kaiserling, who often stopped in Leipzig and brought there with him the afore-mentioned Goldberg, in order to have him given musical instruction by Bach. The Count was often ill and had sleepless nights. At such times, Goldberg, who lived in his house, had to spend the night in an antechamber, so as to play for him during his insomnia. Once the Count mentioned in Bach's presence that he would like to have some clavier pieces for Goldberg, which should be of such a smooth and somewhat lively character that he might be a little cheered up by them in his sleepless nights. Bach thought himself best able to fulfill this wish by means of Variations, the writing of which he had until then considered an ungrateful task on account of the repeatedly similar harmonic foundation. But since at this time all his works were already models of art, such also these variations became under his hand. Yet he produced only a single work of this kind. Thereafter the Count always called them his variations. He never tired of them, and for a long time sleepless nights meant: 'Dear Goldberg, do play me one of my variations.' Bach was perhaps never so rewarded for one of his works as for this. The Count presented him with a golden goblet filled with 100 louis-d'or. Nevertheless, even had the gift been a thousand times larger, their artistic value would not yet have been paid for."
　(The following notes are quoted from the preface to my edition of the Goldberg Variations (New York, G.Schirmer).)
　"Like an enormous passacaglia, these variations reiterate the harmonic implications of the same bass in thirty different forms. This fundamental bass is never stated entirely in its most elemental form, not even in the Aria. But on this harmonic skeleton and around it are constructed the variations, each highly organized and composed of independent thematic material. These follow one another in a symmetrical grouping like the beads of a rosary.
　"Certain alterations of the fundamental bass are to be found. For example, chords of the sixth are interchanged with their root positions, and vice versa. It even happens that a six-four is substituted for a six-chord. The bass, the third, the sixth, or even the fifth is occsionally sharpened or flattened. In some places there is a certain interchange or ambiguous hesitation between the fifth and the sixth, with much use of the third alone against the bass, in order to leave this ambiguity free of limitation or definition. Frequently a basic chord is given a subordinate posotion but the main progression is re-affirmed by a kind of harmonic circumlocution; or a harmony, instead of being stated unequivocally once, is hinted at two or three times. This often occurs in passages where certain steps of the bass are displaced from the measures proper to them (espesially in the canons) being either anticipeted or retarded and bunched together at the close of a phrase. But all these devices are employed by Bach in such ways as never to obscure the main outlines. A detailed study of these variations to try to see exactly how Bach concieved their relation to a common foundation reveals more fully the intellectual span, the imagination, and the genius which permitted so much darling freedom.
　"The form of the Variations as a whole may be shown by comparison, as before, to that of a rosary, or perhaps better explained by an architectual 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 independent character. (excerpted by Glenn Gould) Following upon the pylon-like group which terminated this rhythmic procession, the Aria repeated closes the great circle.
　"There are nine canons, at intervals successively from the unison to the ninth, those at the fourth and fifth in contrary motion, that at the ninth without any independent third voice, such as accompanies the others. Among the variable forms are to be found a fughetta, a French overture, florid slow movements, etc.
　"The Quodlibet mixes together the tunes of two folk songs:
　'Ich bin so lang nicht bei dir g'west.
　Ruck her, ruck her, ruck her.'
and:
　'Kraut und rueben haben mich vertrieben.
　Haett, mein' Mutter Fleisch gekocht,
　so waer ich laenger bleiben.'
These might be translated thus:
　'I've not been with you for so long.
　Come closer, closer, closer.'
and:
　'Beets and spinach drove me far away.
　Had my mother cooked some meat,
　then I'd have stayed much longer.'
　"Possibly this Quodlibet was associated in Bach's mind with the memory of those annual reunions of the Bach family described by Forkel.'The way in which they passed the time during this meeting was entirely musical. Because the whole company was composed of cantors, organists, and town musicians, who were all concerned with the Church, and because anyway it was still the custom to begin all things with religion, as soon as they were assembled a chorale was first struck up. From this devout beginning they proceeded to jokes which were frequently in strong contrast. That is, they then sang popular songs, partly comic and also partly of indecent content, all mixed together on the spur of the moment so that the different improvised voices indeed constituted a kind of harmony, but so that the words in every voice were different. This kind of improvised harmonizing they called a Quodlibet, and not only could laugh over it quite whole-heartedly themselves, but also aroused just as hearty and irresistible laughter in all who heard them.'"
　With some hesitation I quote the following final passage from the preface to my edition. It represents a kind of writing which I feel should not ordinarily be indulged. Yet something impels me to include it here. Perhaps it is the the fact that since this passage was written, eighteen years before the present recorded performance, I have modified the interpretation of a few variations, but my basic sentiments have not change.
　"However much it is an actof impudence thus to discuss something which is far too profound and complex to be grasped in words, it seems necessary to confess some of the feelings which inevitably come with the playing of the music.
　"The Aria seems to foreshadow the spirit of the whole work through the tenderness and calm with which the solemnity of the fundamental bass is clothed at its initial appearance.
　"The first variation stands like a festive gateway leading to the inner world exposed in the following three variations. These, like so many of the canons and the Aria, have an unearthly pure sweetness and a lyricism in every phrase that makes one long to dissolve one's whole self into three or four singing voices. For a moment this quiet lyricism is interrupted by the shining smooth swiftness of the first arabesque variation. Then comes a second canon of an almost nostalgic tenderness; then a faraway scherzo of the utmost lightness and delicacy. The following arabesque and canon return to a lyricism which is interrupted by the brusque roughness of the Fughetta. This is followed by the delicate network of the third arabesque and the sunny canon at the fourth. Then comes a flute aria of a breath-taking quiet pure job. The humor of the fourth arabesque makes even more striking the appearance of the dark tragic canon at the fifth which ends the first half of the variations.
　"The second half opens with a majestic French Ouverture, followed by one of the lightest of the arabesque variations. In the sixth canon and the lute-variation we return to a lyric sweetness like that of the beginning, but more peacefull. another scherzo arabesque contrasts with the somber seventh canon, which in turn joins on to the alla breve variation. This, for all its quicker tempo, tranforms the chromatic pathos of the canon into that kind of serene chastened joy which follows pain. In the seventh arabesque we burst forth in the most unrestrained exuberant joy, which is tranquilized in the gentle rocking of the canon at the octave. Again we are interrupted to be carried to even greater tragic heights on the waves of a quiet yet irresistibly passionate aria. From the eighth arabesque on, the variations mount through a sprightly canon, glittering trills, and waltzlike bravura to the final jubilant climax in the Quodlibet, upon which the repetitions of the Aria falls like a benediction.
　"But for all their lyricism and tragic passion and exuberance, the Aria the Variations seems of devine substance entirely refined and purified of anything personal or ignoble, so that in playing them on seems only the unworthy mouthpiece of a higher voice. And even beyond the scope of the emotions that have been aroused, the effect of the whole is one of boundless peace, in which one returns cleansed, renewed, matured to the starting point, which seen a second time seems so traversed spiritual journey.
　"But how Bach himself in pious humility would ridicule these high-sounding words of ours with a wry face and with god-like laughter:
　'Kraut and Rueben...'"