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.
NOT YET approved: what needs to be done will take quite some time
still missing:
- sound examples demonstrating what one or the other structure means for performance
- scores illustrating which variations are crucial for certain of the possible views on the structure (readers do not have them memorized)
- conclusions should not only list the methodology and list the various possible views on the structure, but also evaluate them. Which one is most successful, even if only subjectively. This should be accompanied by a demonstration of why it the structure of choice is more (or othes less) successful.
comments: 2
(last entry by Bart van Oort - 24/02/2022 at 23:57)