Exposition

Rediscover the Structure of Goldberg Variations (2022)

Shengqi Chen 
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About this exposition

Goldberg Variations represents Bach’s most extraordinary single achievement in the art of variation-writing. The uniqueness of this piece can be described in various ways. However, its essential beauty for me comes from two factors which in a way stand at two points of extremes. Its simplicity of its sincere music language and its labyrinthine structure. The piece is like a gigantic and mazy architecture which is built with Bach’s purest spiritual trueness and longing. My primary research questions are led by the second factor which is the structure. What are the structural elements in this music? How can we discover them in different scales and dimensions? How do interpretation and structure interact? As a performer, how can we react and cope with this huge structure in the performance practice of Goldberg variations? In this research, I aim to put structure at the center of my study. By isolating these structural elements and combining with performance practice, my final outcome will be a creative insight of the structure and an informed interpretation of Goldberg Variations which can bring the structure strategies’ superiority into full play.
typeresearch exposition
keywordsGoldberg Variations, J.S. Bach, structure
date09/01/2021
published11/07/2022
last modified11/07/2022
statuslimited publication
share statusprivate
copyrightShengqi Chen
licenseAll rights reserved
languageEnglish
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1109223/1109224
published inKC Research Portal
portal issue3. Internal publication


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comments: 2 (last entry by Bart van Oort - 24/02/2022 at 23:57)