The Goldberg Variations (Gould album)
Encyclopedia
Bach: The Goldberg Variations is the 1955 debut album of the Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould
. An interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach's
Goldberg Variations
(BWV
988), the work launched Gould's career as a renowned international pianist, and became one of the most well-known piano recordings. Sales were "astonishing" for a classical album: it was reported to have sold 40,000 copies by 1960, and had sold more than 100,000 by the time of Gould's death in 1982.
At the time of the album's release, Bach's Goldberg Variations—a set of 30 contrapuntal variations
beginning and ending with an aria
—was outside the standard piano repertoire (having been recorded on the instrument only a few times before, either on small labels or unreleased). The work was considered esoteric and technically demanding, requiring hand crossing in various places when played on a piano. Gould's album both established the Goldberg Variations within the contemporary classical repertoire and made him an internationally famous pianist nearly "overnight". First played in concert by Gould in 1954, the composition was a staple of Gould's performances in the years following the recording.
in Manhattan
over four days between June 10 and June 16, a few weeks after Gould signed his contract. Columbia Masterworks Records
, the company's classical music division, released the album in January 1956. Bach: The Goldberg Variations became Columbia's bestselling classical album and earned Gould an international reputation. The record is now in the catalog of Sony Classical Records
.
At least one record-company executive questioned Gould's choice of the then-obscure Goldberg Variations for his recorded debut. In a 1981 interview, Gould reflected on the studio's situation: "I think the objections [Columbia] had, which were mild and expressed in a most friendly fashion, were quite logical. I was twenty-two years old and proposed doing my recording debut with the Goldberg Variations, which was supposed to be the private preserve, of, perhaps, Wanda Landowska
or someone of that generation and stature. They thought that possibly some more modest undertaking was advisable." Then aged 22, Gould was confident and assertive about his work, and prevailed in the decision as to what he would record for his debut—having also ensured that his contract granted him artistic freedom. Columbia recognized his talent and tolerated his eccentricities; on June 25 the company issued a good-natured press release describing Gould's unique habits and accoutrements. He brought to the studio a special piano chair, bottles of pills, and unseasonal winter clothing; once there, he would soak his hands and arms in very hot water for twenty minutes before playing. Gould often had trouble finding a piano he liked; the Variations were recorded on a Steinway
he had acquired in 1955, which had been shipped around the northeastern United States for his concerts.
The album gained attention for Gould's unique pianistic method, which incorporated a finger technique involving great clarity of articulation (a "detached staccatissimo
"), even at great speed, and little sustaining pedal. Gould's piano teacher, Alberto Guerrero
, had encouraged Gould to practice "finger tapping
", which required very slowly tapping the fingers of the playing hand with the free hand. According to Guerrero, tapping taught the pianist an economy of muscle movement that would enable precision at high speeds. Gould "tapped" each Goldberg variation before recording it, which took about 32 hours.
The extreme tempi of the 1955 performance made for a short record, as did Gould's decision not to play many of the repeats (each Goldberg variation consists of two parts, traditionally played in an A–A–B–B format). The length of a performance of the Goldberg Variations can therefore vary drastically: Gould's 1955 recording is 38 minutes 34 seconds long, while his reconsidered, slower 1981 version (see below) is 51:18. By way of contrast, fellow Canadian Angela Hewitt
's 1999 record is 78:32.
The artist's ability to perfect his work in the studio—what Gould called "take-twoness"—attracted Gould from the beginning. He recorded no fewer than 21 versions of the introductory aria before being satisfied. Over the course of his career, Gould became more and more interested in the creative possibilities of the studio.
Gould wrote the liner notes
to the recording. Concluding his back-cover essay on the Goldberg Variations, he wrote: "It is, in short, music which observes neither end nor beginning, music with neither real climax nor real resolution, music which, like Baudelaire's
lovers, 'rests lightly on the wings of the unchecked wind.' It has, then, unity through intuitive perception, unity born of craft and scrutiny, mellowed by mastery achieved, and revealed to us here, as so rarely in art, in the vision of subconscious design exulting upon a pinnacle of potency."
that he had begun to study the Goldberg Variations in about 1950. It was one of the first works that he had learned "entirely without my teacher", and which he had "made up my mind about relatively [early]". He noted that his performance view of the Variations now involved slowing the piece down: "[That] is about the only musical change that has gone on, but it implies, I think, possibly an approach of slightly greater breadth now than at that time... I was very much in a 'let's get the show on the road and get through with it' sort of mood [during the recording]. I felt that to linger unduly over anything would be to take away from a sort of overall unity of things... In part it was brought about by a reaction against so much piano playing which I had heard and, in fact, part of the way in which I myself was taught, which was in the school of the Romantic pianists of the Cortot
/Schnabel
tradition".
Gould later became more critical of his 1955 interpretation, expressing reservations about its fast tempi and pianistic affectation. He found much of it "just too fast for comfort", and lamented the 25th variation, which sounded "like a Chopin nocturne"—to Gould, an undesirable quality. He continued, "I can no longer recognize the person who did that. To me today that piece has intensity without any sort of false glamour. Not a pianistic or instrumental intensity, a spiritual intensity."
Shortly before his death in 1982, Gould re-recorded the Goldberg Variations digitally
and in stereo in the Columbia 30th Street Studio
in New York City. He largely abandoned the showmanship of the 1955 performance and replaced it with a more introspective interpretation that included more calculated phrasing
and ornamentation
. For the 1981 version, Gould sought to unify the variations differently, through his choices of tempi: he played more of the repeats, and endeavoured to express proportional rhythmic relations between the variations. Arriving within a year of his death, the 1981 recording is popularly recognized as "autumnal", a symbolic testament to Gould's career.
In 2002, Sony issued a three-compact-disc collection titled A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations 1955 & 1981. It includes the 1955 and 1981 Goldberg recordings (the former remastered
from analogue
tapes), and a third disc with 1955 studio outtake
s and a lengthy interview with Gould documentarian and music critic Tim Page
.
Glenn Gould
Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach...
. An interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach's
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
Goldberg Variations
Goldberg Variations
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form...
(BWV
BWV
The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis is the numbering system identifying compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. The prefix BWV, followed by the work's number, is the shorthand identification for Bach's compositions...
988), the work launched Gould's career as a renowned international pianist, and became one of the most well-known piano recordings. Sales were "astonishing" for a classical album: it was reported to have sold 40,000 copies by 1960, and had sold more than 100,000 by the time of Gould's death in 1982.
At the time of the album's release, Bach's Goldberg Variations—a set of 30 contrapuntal variations
Variation (music)
In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...
beginning and ending with an aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
—was outside the standard piano repertoire (having been recorded on the instrument only a few times before, either on small labels or unreleased). The work was considered esoteric and technically demanding, requiring hand crossing in various places when played on a piano. Gould's album both established the Goldberg Variations within the contemporary classical repertoire and made him an internationally famous pianist nearly "overnight". First played in concert by Gould in 1954, the composition was a staple of Gould's performances in the years following the recording.
Recording process
The recordings were made in 1955 at Columbia Records 30th Street studioCBS 30th Street Studio
CBS 30th Street Studio, also known as Columbia 30th Street Studio, and nicknamed "The Church", was an American recording studio operated by Columbia Records from 1949 to 1981 located at 207 East 30th Street, between Second and Third Avenues in Manhattan, New York City...
in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
over four days between June 10 and June 16, a few weeks after Gould signed his contract. Columbia Masterworks Records
Columbia Masterworks Records
Columbia Masterworks Records was a record label started in 1927 by Columbia Records.It was intended for releases of classical music and artists, as opposed to popular music, which bore the regular Columbia logo. Masterworks Records' first release, in 1927, was a complete performance of the...
, the company's classical music division, released the album in January 1956. Bach: The Goldberg Variations became Columbia's bestselling classical album and earned Gould an international reputation. The record is now in the catalog of Sony Classical Records
Sony Classical Records
Sony Classical Records was started in 1927 as Columbia Masterworks Records, a subsidiary of the American Columbia Records. In 1948, it issued the first commercially successful long-playing 12" record...
.
At least one record-company executive questioned Gould's choice of the then-obscure Goldberg Variations for his recorded debut. In a 1981 interview, Gould reflected on the studio's situation: "I think the objections [Columbia] had, which were mild and expressed in a most friendly fashion, were quite logical. I was twenty-two years old and proposed doing my recording debut with the Goldberg Variations, which was supposed to be the private preserve, of, perhaps, Wanda Landowska
Wanda Landowska
Wanda Landowska was a Polish harpsichordist whose performances, teaching, recordings and writings played a large role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord in the early 20th century...
or someone of that generation and stature. They thought that possibly some more modest undertaking was advisable." Then aged 22, Gould was confident and assertive about his work, and prevailed in the decision as to what he would record for his debut—having also ensured that his contract granted him artistic freedom. Columbia recognized his talent and tolerated his eccentricities; on June 25 the company issued a good-natured press release describing Gould's unique habits and accoutrements. He brought to the studio a special piano chair, bottles of pills, and unseasonal winter clothing; once there, he would soak his hands and arms in very hot water for twenty minutes before playing. Gould often had trouble finding a piano he liked; the Variations were recorded on a Steinway
Steinway & Sons
Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway , is an American and German manufacturer of handmade pianos, founded 1853 in Manhattan in New York City by German immigrant Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg...
he had acquired in 1955, which had been shipped around the northeastern United States for his concerts.
The album gained attention for Gould's unique pianistic method, which incorporated a finger technique involving great clarity of articulation (a "detached staccatissimo
Staccatissimo
In musical notation, staccatissimo indicates that the notes are to be played extremely separated and distinct, a superlative staccato. This can be notated with little pikes over or under the notes, depending on stem direction, as in this example from Bruckner's Symphony No...
"), even at great speed, and little sustaining pedal. Gould's piano teacher, Alberto Guerrero
Alberto Guerrero
Antonio Alberto García Guerrero was a Chilean-Canadian composer, pianist, and teacher. While he is most famously remembered as the mentor of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, Guerrero influenced several generations of musicians through his many years of teaching at the Toronto Conservatory of...
, had encouraged Gould to practice "finger tapping
Finger tapping (piano)
Finger tapping is a piano technique developed by Alberto Guerrero for his pupil Glenn Gould. According to Guerrero, the idea for the technique came from a circus show with an extremely flexible young boy.- Technique :...
", which required very slowly tapping the fingers of the playing hand with the free hand. According to Guerrero, tapping taught the pianist an economy of muscle movement that would enable precision at high speeds. Gould "tapped" each Goldberg variation before recording it, which took about 32 hours.
The extreme tempi of the 1955 performance made for a short record, as did Gould's decision not to play many of the repeats (each Goldberg variation consists of two parts, traditionally played in an A–A–B–B format). The length of a performance of the Goldberg Variations can therefore vary drastically: Gould's 1955 recording is 38 minutes 34 seconds long, while his reconsidered, slower 1981 version (see below) is 51:18. By way of contrast, fellow Canadian Angela Hewitt
Angela Hewitt
Angela Hewitt, OC, OBE is a Canadian classical pianist. She holds British nationality through her father, Godfrey, who was the organist and choirmaster at Christ Church Cathedral in Ottawa, Ontario for almost fifty years.-Career:...
's 1999 record is 78:32.
The artist's ability to perfect his work in the studio—what Gould called "take-twoness"—attracted Gould from the beginning. He recorded no fewer than 21 versions of the introductory aria before being satisfied. Over the course of his career, Gould became more and more interested in the creative possibilities of the studio.
Gould wrote the liner notes
Liner notes
Liner notes are the writings found in booklets which come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for vinyl records and cassettes.-Origin:...
to the recording. Concluding his back-cover essay on the Goldberg Variations, he wrote: "It is, in short, music which observes neither end nor beginning, music with neither real climax nor real resolution, music which, like Baudelaire's
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
lovers, 'rests lightly on the wings of the unchecked wind.' It has, then, unity through intuitive perception, unity born of craft and scrutiny, mellowed by mastery achieved, and revealed to us here, as so rarely in art, in the vision of subconscious design exulting upon a pinnacle of potency."
Reappraisal
Gould commented in a 1959 interview with Alan RichAlan Rich
Alan Rich was an American music critic who served on the staff of many newspapers and magazines on both coasts. Originally from Brookline, Massachusetts, he first studied medicine at Harvard University before turning to music...
that he had begun to study the Goldberg Variations in about 1950. It was one of the first works that he had learned "entirely without my teacher", and which he had "made up my mind about relatively [early]". He noted that his performance view of the Variations now involved slowing the piece down: "[That] is about the only musical change that has gone on, but it implies, I think, possibly an approach of slightly greater breadth now than at that time... I was very much in a 'let's get the show on the road and get through with it' sort of mood [during the recording]. I felt that to linger unduly over anything would be to take away from a sort of overall unity of things... In part it was brought about by a reaction against so much piano playing which I had heard and, in fact, part of the way in which I myself was taught, which was in the school of the Romantic pianists of the Cortot
Alfred Cortot
Alfred Denis Cortot was a Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor. He is one of the most renowned 20th-century classical musicians, especially valued for his poetic insight in Romantic period piano works, particularly those of Chopin and Schumann.-Early life and education:Born in Nyon, Vaud, in the...
/Schnabel
Artur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel was an Austrian classical pianist, who also composed and taught. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura...
tradition".
Gould later became more critical of his 1955 interpretation, expressing reservations about its fast tempi and pianistic affectation. He found much of it "just too fast for comfort", and lamented the 25th variation, which sounded "like a Chopin nocturne"—to Gould, an undesirable quality. He continued, "I can no longer recognize the person who did that. To me today that piece has intensity without any sort of false glamour. Not a pianistic or instrumental intensity, a spiritual intensity."
Shortly before his death in 1982, Gould re-recorded the Goldberg Variations digitally
Digital recording
In digital recording, digital audio and digital video is directly recorded to a storage device as a stream of discrete numbers, representing the changes in air pressure for audio and chroma and luminance values for video through time, thus making an abstract template for the original sound or...
and in stereo in the Columbia 30th Street Studio
CBS 30th Street Studio
CBS 30th Street Studio, also known as Columbia 30th Street Studio, and nicknamed "The Church", was an American recording studio operated by Columbia Records from 1949 to 1981 located at 207 East 30th Street, between Second and Third Avenues in Manhattan, New York City...
in New York City. He largely abandoned the showmanship of the 1955 performance and replaced it with a more introspective interpretation that included more calculated phrasing
Phrase (music)
In music and music theory, phrase and phrasing are concepts and practices related to grouping consecutive melodic notes, both in their composition and performance...
and ornamentation
Ornament (music)
In music, ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody , but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note...
. For the 1981 version, Gould sought to unify the variations differently, through his choices of tempi: he played more of the repeats, and endeavoured to express proportional rhythmic relations between the variations. Arriving within a year of his death, the 1981 recording is popularly recognized as "autumnal", a symbolic testament to Gould's career.
In 2002, Sony issued a three-compact-disc collection titled A State of Wonder: The Complete Goldberg Variations 1955 & 1981. It includes the 1955 and 1981 Goldberg recordings (the former remastered
Audio mastering
Mastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...
from analogue
Analog recording
Analog recording is a technique used for the recording of analog signals which among many possibilities include audio frequency, analog audio and analog video information for later playback.Analog recording methods store signals as a continual wave in or on the media...
tapes), and a third disc with 1955 studio outtake
Outtake
An outtake is a portion of a work that is removed in the editing process and not included in the work's final, publicly released version. In the digital era, significant outtakes have been appended to CD and DVD reissues of many albums and films as bonus tracks or features, in film often, but not...
s and a lengthy interview with Gould documentarian and music critic Tim Page
Tim Page (music critic)
Tim Page is a writer, editor, music critic, producer and professor. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic for the Washington Post and also played an essential role in the revival of American author Dawn Powell.-Career:Page grew up in Storrs, Connecticut, where his father, Ellis B...
.