Saturday, March 21, 2009
Goldberg Variations
Happy Birthday, JS Bach. And thank you.
The Goldberg variations were commissioned in 1741 by Count Kaiserling, who could not sleep. They were to be played to him in bed, by Herr Goldberg. I wonder how Bach felt about this. Glenn Gould's 1981 recording of the Variations is very different from his 1955 recording. I like listening to them back to back. In '55 he was possessed; 26 years later he's in possession.
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Count Kaiserling should've had a bubble to sleep in.
ReplyDeletegosh i've never heard them played at such a slow tempo before...it was really putting me to sleep...heh.
ReplyDeleteHm...poor guy.
ReplyDeleteQC - poor Bach.
It's Bach's birthday again in two days. I was wondering if you might be interested in (writing about) the Open Goldberg Variations project: http://kck.st/opengoldberg
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Robert Douglass