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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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4 comments:

  1. SmoothmanMarch 21, 2009 at 8:06 PM

    Count Kaiserling should've had a bubble to sleep in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. quiltcatMarch 21, 2009 at 11:49 PM

    gosh i've never heard them played at such a slow tempo before...it was really putting me to sleep...heh.

    ReplyDelete
  3. MarieMarch 23, 2009 at 10:40 PM

    Hm...poor guy.

    QC - poor Bach.

    ReplyDelete
  4. RobertMarch 19, 2011 at 3:16 PM

    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

    Cheers,

    Robert Douglass

    ReplyDelete

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