On October 17, pianist Reinis Zariņš will perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” in the Small Hall of the Dzintari Concert Hall at the Autumn Chamber Music Festival. Legend has it that Count Keizerling Baham commissioned it with a special desire to dispel insomnia, but the player was the talented harpsichordist Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, whose name we know this work.
Ilze Medne: Do you have an explanation for why musicians and listeners are still interested in this work, unique in scope and structure? Why do musicians still want to play it?
Reinis Zariņš: I don’t have an answer myself, but “Goldberg’s Variations” seem to have become almost a cult piece that continues to inspire people.
This is paradoxical, because the whole piece is in one tone, and depending on whether the repetitions are used or not, it lasts for almost an hour or even a year and a half – either as if boring!
I also had the first level of acquaintance, then the next one, discovering something new every day, unnoticed so far. It can already be said that it is with every piece of music, but I think that there are more opportunities for new discoveries here than in other works, and that is why there is this constant interest here. Of course, for purely practical reasons, the “Goldberg Variations” are very good for re-instrumentation. In my opinion, the most successful transition is the string trio variant. Especially when it is played on historical instruments.
Do you believe the legend that the harpsichordist Goldberg, who was once a student of both Bach’s eldest son Wilhelm Friedeman and Johann Sebastian himself, really played this music without falling asleep? This is such a beautiful legend. In his “Clavier-Übung”, where “Variations” is published, Bach does not mention his dedication to Keizerling, he just wrote – Aria with variations.
It’s true. Perhaps even a little unfortunate that so many of our beloved anecdotes from the history of classical music are gradually being questioned today. There is a lack of evidence, perhaps the biographer describing the events was too romantic and a living fantasy, so we cannot believe the stories. It is clear that the ‘variations’, where Bach received a sizable sum of gold for them, were custom work. It is possible that Baham had this Goldberg in mind, who was probably a very, very virtuoso musician. This piece, originally composed for harpsichord with two manuals, is difficult to play even on a piano with one keyboard, as pianists now play. Hand pins very, the possibilities for training are endless.
Musicians have explained the message of the work in various ways – from images of nature to the scriptures. What path have you taken or are you looking for answers in a sheet music article?
Of course, especially since I was playing “Variations” for the first time. I will go into the written text and try to understand how each of the 30 variations is designed and how they interact with each other. Are each of them really autonomous and unrelated? I think not, knowing Bach’s interest in large-scale connections with small-sized things, the proportions of micro and macrocosm that interested him. There is no single answer. We only decide at some point when we have to play and record this work – I think so now, and it will help me to interpret this work as convincingly as possible at the moment.
But, as we already know, after a while, musicians return to the composition again and change their thoughts, even giving up what they thought before.
And why not? It’s all progress. I think that everyone who clings to the “Variations” at one point wonders whether they could not all be played in one wave, that they all have some common pulse, no matter how unimaginably different they may be.
I have not heard anyone who has convincingly been able to do this, but I am also struggling with it myself now and trying to see if it is not possible in any way.
It would be colossal if it were possible to show both the diversity of “Variations” and the fact that the work can be played as one breath.
There is a version that the structure is divided by three.
If you look at the “Variations” in the table of contents, it is clear that the work is framed by arias, which are repeated identically at the beginning and at the end. All 30 variations are grouped into three, every third is a canon that expands with each step. And instead of the latest variation, Bach puts a little joyful potpourri on popular topics. And here are so many versions of why this is done.
Sometimes you can even get to hysterical laughter by reading how people try to explain every single thing Bach has written.
As if whatever he had done, every turn to the right or left was certainly in some way ingenious and sacred, forgetting that Bach was human.
In “Goldberg’s Variations” we see a smile and even a game much more than in other Bach works.
Yes, and it’s peculiar that the whole piece is really, except for three minor variations, in a solitaire, very energetic, with jokes, pure joy. There you can even imagine throwing and chasing a ball, which is not really the case there. It’s a joy of life that you can’t take away. I do not know if the Bahamas really has another piece of such work that is so impregnated with its joy at being able to. That he has a God-given ability and he uses it for God’s sake, and maybe that’s all. Bach does this as best he can. I don’t think it’s because of the money he’s paid for it.
Money is important, but as you know, he tried to glorify God with what he wrote. And that is the result.
An hour for one piece is a long time. Is there a word you can use to describe what is happening to you during this lesson? Then be alone with Baha, with the instrument, with yourself, and nothing should bother you. Maybe it’s meditation?
Yes, by the way, during the pandemic, our audience has really remained silent. No one dares to cough and otherwise make noise.
It’s interesting and pleasant, but also weird in a way. People are in the hall, but they can’t be heard at all, there is no idea even if the audience is in the dark. But I think of meditation when, for example, I play Olivier Messiah’s “Twenty Looks at the Child of Christ.” This is a cycle of at least two hours that should not be interrupted in the middle. The particularly slow parts are reminiscent of Buddhist-type meditation, where the mind is cleansed of everything. Bach music is different. “Variations” become more binding if you do not repeat everything completely twice, as intended in the notes. Then the piece moves forward with great energy, in such clear waves. There are both peaks and falls, after which the trend continues again. I am certainly not going to repeat everything in principle, thus tiring and losing the listener, who may enter a state that could be beautifully called meditation, but rather think that he is dreaming and maybe falling asleep.
Glen Guild returned to this work after more than 30 years and recorded it for the second time in the studio. Do you anticipate that you will also have an interesting time to open these notes?
Of course, I haven’t spent nearly enough time with this work yet to find everything that can be found in it. It is always the story that if we want to make a living from our work, we have to do a lot, quickly, well, and so there is always a feeling that if there was another week, another month to prepare a piece, or how good it would be! However, how many there are, so many, how many can understand, so much, and probably, even a month later, there would still be a feeling – even if there was still time.
Yes, I would be happy if I had the opportunity to play my current interpretation somewhere else in Latvia. It’s something that is really a pleasure not only for me to play, but also to listen to.
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