Search For Bach 2000 9 Keyboard Works 1 at Amazon
|
The Goldberg Variations is often displayed as an unsurpassed model for contrapuntal composition. While the perfection of the canons is often times emphasized by music theorists, the most essential aspect of the work, in my mind, is the instrumental extravaganza. Those variations are the “Etudes d’execution transcendantale” of their time. They exaggerate and raise the harpsichord virtuosity to levels never heard before. In this work, J.S. Bach has written the most fantastic and outrageous keyboard idioms of his time and he has pushed existent ones to their limits. Visionary hand choreographies (Var.5, 20, 26), double thirds and sixths (Var.23) double trills (Var. 28), alternating chords (Var.29) and a great deal of other keyboard acrobatics make this work one of the greatest instrumental attainments of musical history together with the above-mentioned studies by Liszt, the “Gaspard de la Nuit” or the “Three Movements from Petrouchka”. The contrapuntal music writing styles (fugues and canons) have acquired an aura of seriousness and closely religiousness for the duration of the romantic epoch. After having been forgotten for a century or so, when J. S. Bach was “discovered” by Mendelssohn, he was seen as the musician par-excellence for the salvation of romantically tormented souls. The prominence of J.S. Bach’s church-commissioned works eclipsed his profane and strictly instrumental works. In all his compositions, it has been a “tradition” to seek the Divine Signs and connections to the Scriptures. This so called tradition led to such insanities as the “research” of divine numerology in his fugues, the “discovery” of the Holy Trinity when a voice jumps a step of third and other ridiculous things. The religious sensibility in his Masses, Cantatas and Passions has been extrapolated to all his other works. Religion, for J. S. Bach, was a “normal” and “natural” part of his life. He was not just used by religious authority, but he was a man who deeply and sincerely practiced Lutheranism. Yet he was a unfeigned composer in the sense that he had the aspirations and the artistry to compose a potpourri of music. Although J. S. Bach never composed operas, probably because no one hired him to do so and because such works might have offended his Lutheran community, he was surely competent of doing so. His operas might have rivaled those of Haendel and Rameau. Similarly it is defective to view Bach’s fugues and canons as “pure intellectual music.” The joy is not so much in the analysis of their forms, but in listening and performing them. After centuries of homophonic music writing we have forgotten how plainly gratifying are the musical forms of canons and fugues. By captivating the mind with an beautiful theme and leading it through contrapuntal mazes, one may “almost easily” achieve, if not good, at least a decent music. When the Bach family accumulated on Christmas evenings they sang improvised canons to have fun. I believe that music analysts who stress the perfectionism of the counterpoint in Bach’s canons are missing a point. Today, it is possible to formulate the most elaborated counterpoint in less than a second with a programmed machine. It is a simple matter of following rules to give rise to a perfective canon. The talent of J. S. Bach is revealed in the places where he deviated from the rules. Every composer knows (even if numerous would never confess it) that the most difficult compositions are the “free” ones. A simple melody (an “aria” for example) may be much more difficult to compose than a 6 voice fugue. This is why I find that the free variations (Var.1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29) disclose more of the composer’s genius. Still more striking examples are the Aria and variations 13 and 25. It is also worth noting how those slow variations, number 13 and the “adagio” number 25 are placed in the whole set. The set is divided into two main sections: Aria – Variations. 15 and Variations 16 to Aria (da capo). The numbers 13 and 25, which are the aroused climaxes of the whole work, are placed in strategically symmetrical positions. For the framework of the composition Bach chose to include one interlude and one canon, based on the harmonic framework of the antecedently composed aria, because that seemed to him to be the most agreeably diverting form. There is no shame and must be no fear in using the word “entertaining” here. In the hands of J. S. Bach, an agreeably diverting form such as a canon would assuredly turn out to be a masterwork. The Goldberg Variations stands high in the history of keyboard music, alongside the innovative studies of Chopin and Liszt or Igor Stravinsky’s Petrouchka, for it is a revolutionary instrumental accomplishment. Similarly to works like the Studies by Chopin and Liszt or the Petrouchka Suite by Stravinsky, The Goldberg Variations is one of this kind of music which extends and revolutionize the instrumental idioms of it is time. Most helpful customer reviews 24 of 24 people found the following review helpful. 24 of 25 people found the following review helpful. This is definitely not corny Mannheim Steamroller stuff. This is marvelous straight-ahead jazz on old European Standards. It seems so undoable as to be unthinkable, yet Loussier pulls it off as if it were obvious, and in a sense it is. But not since Walter/Wendy Carlos has anyone done it with such flair and respect.
I’m going to wear a hole in this CD. And I’m off to get the others. 12 of 12 people found the following review helpful. |
BACH & JAZZ LOVERS