Goldberg Variations
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a keyboard work by Johann Sebastian Bach: an aria, 30 variations, and a reprise of the aria.
Aria: A lyrical vocal or instrumental composition, often written as a self-contained movement. The work opens and closes with this aria, whose harmonic pattern anchors the variations.
Goldberg Variations, Variation 1: The first variation in Bach’s Goldberg Variations, marked with a lively character and prominent hand crossing. It immediately departs from the aria’s reflective surface while retaining its underlying harmonic structure.
Johann Sebastian Bach: A German composer and musician of the Baroque era, born in 1685 and died in 1750. He composed and published BWV 988 as the final part of his Clavier-Übung.
Harpsichord: A keyboard instrument that sounds by plucking strings with quills or similar plectra. Bach’s first edition specifies two manuals, allowing some variations to use hand crossings and different keyboards.
Dmitri Sitkovetsky: A Russian-born violinist and conductor who arranged the Goldberg Variations for string trio. His 1985 arrangement brought Bach’s keyboard cycle into a widely performed chamber-music form.
Variation form: A musical form in which a theme is restated with changes in melody, rhythm, harmony, or texture. Bach transforms a shared harmonic foundation rather than simply repeating the aria’s melody.
Goldberg Variations, Variation 25: The twenty-fifth variation in Bach’s Goldberg Variations, a slow, expressive piece in G minor. Its dark, chromatic writing forms a striking emotional contrast within the cycle.
Balthasar Schmid: A Nuremberg engraver and publisher who produced several printed editions of Bach’s music. He engraved the first edition of the Goldberg Variations, published in 1741.
Piano: A keyboard instrument that produces sound when hammers strike strings. Modern pianists adapt the work’s articulation, ornamentation, and hand-crossing passages to a single keyboard.
Goldberg Variations (Sitkovetsky arrangement): A string-trio arrangement of Bach’s Goldberg Variations made by Dmitri Sitkovetsky. It demonstrates how the work’s counterpoint and variation sequence can be recast without keyboards.