Publication

2001-10-29 - Cambridge University Press

Language

English

Word Count

29,500 words, Guess

Page Count

118 pages

Physical Format

Paperback

Identifiers

and 4 more

Classifications

  • LCCMT145.B14 W55 2001

Description

Many listeners and players are fascinated by Bach's Goldberg Variations. In this wideranging and searching study, Professor Williams, one of the leading Bach scholars of our time, helps them probe its depths and understand its uniqueness. He considers the work's historical origins, especially in relation to all Bach's Clavier¸bung volumes and late keyboard works, its musical agenda and its formal shape, and discusses significant performance issues. In the course of the book he poses a number of key questions. Why should such a work be written? Does the work have both a conceptual and a perceptual shape? What other music is likely to have influenced the Goldberg and to what extent is it trying to be encyclopedic? What is the canonic vocabulary? How have contemporaries or musicians from Beethoven to the present day seen this work and, above all, how has its mysterious beauty been created?

First Sentence

Quite what the implications of the curiously unprepossessing term 'Keyboard Practice' are is less clear than one might suppose.

Subjects

Other Editions

  • Bach: The Goldberg Variations (Cambridge Music Handbooks)PaperbackCambridge University Press2001-10-29

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