ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 328, 5 October 1945, Page 14

ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT

Bach’s Ersatz Sleeping-Draug ht

that will put people to sleep -many of them do. When Bach wrote his Goldberg Variations, now having a very rare airing at 2YC, he accepted a stiffer challenge: he undertook to make insomnia tolerable. What it was that preyed on the mind of Count von Kayserling we do not know, but he kept as household musician to play to him at night a certain Gottlieb Goldberg, one of Bach’s most gifted pupils. Through him he commissioned "something quiet and cheerful" for his sleepless nights. These variations are what he got. He liked them and paid handsomely-a goblet and a hundred golden louis. To Bach, who lived (as we do) in the days before universal family endowment, it must have been a big moment. Ne composer can write music The music itself, in spite of the status given it in the text books, is less well known even among musicians than any other of Bach’s keyboard works except, perhaps, "The Art of Fugue." The reasons for this are mostly implicit in the story. By conforming to the specifications of their peculiar purpose, the Goldberg Variations are necessarily unsuitable for some of the media ~by which music becomes familiar to us. They were written for a harpsichord with two manuals like an .organ. Translated to the single keyboard of the piano, at least six of the variations become maddeningly difficult-fingers collide and interlock in swiftly crossing scale passages. The technical trials mastered, there are still obstacles in the way of contert performance. The music runs about 40 minutes -for a. purist who ‘plays the repeats, twice as long. Busoni in his edition has suggested a selection for concert purposes, but, being Busoni, has jettisoned some of the more gently beautiful variations (Var. 18, for instance) and left in the terrific’ ones after adding a few more notes to them. Rheinberger has arranged "the work for two pianos, in which form a selection was played at (and broadcast from) a recent lunch-hour concert in Dunedin. As a concert piece the Variations are not likely to win wide popularity in their original form. Why should they? Bach’s music all shows that supreme fittingness which is the mark of the best work in any profession-architec-ture, dressmaking, journalism, or whichever it may be-that it bears the unmistakable stamp of its creator, and yet is perfectly suited for the occasion and purpose for which it was intended. Thus his "48" have become, as he hoped, "What every young musician should know"; his Brandenburg and other concertos have the robust and stimulating qualities needed for concerts and evening parties, and the Goldberg Variations are there to intrigue the mind when the house is quiet. One’s faith in Bach might tempt one to argue further that they sound better at 1 a.m. than at 1 p.m.; better when lying down than

when sitting up. When we listen to them let us judge them in the light of what they are meant to be. To Stimulate Guess-work Bernard Shaw wrote on first hearing Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Handel that you might as well call them Variations in B Flat. If one expects a strong air running through its variations in recognisable form, as in Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, or Mozart’s A Major Piano Sonata, then one may hear the Goldbergs merely as a set of Variations in G Major. Variations on what? The Aria, a wambly little sarabande, drifts off into the mist and some very different tunes take its place. If one wants a straw to clutch at, it is there in the bass, and Brahms spoke for Bach as well as for himself when he said, "The bass is more important than the melody." The chain that binds the 30 Goldberg Variations is by no means obvious. It is not meant to be. They were written not to be swallowed hastily by busy people, but to keep an idle man guessing. After the fireworks climax of Var. 29 and the cheerful quodlibet of wellknown tunes of the day that is Var. 30, the music switches back to the beginning and the Aria is heard once more to join the ends of the chain in full circle. At this point concertgoers who are unfamiliar with the work make for the exit, having read, perhaps, how von Bulow gave two consecutive performances in one evening of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, on the grounds that | opportunities for hearing it were toorare. Mr. Goldberg was probably ordered straight round the course once more, and he who plays for his own pleasure will be tempted to do the same, for understanding of this work seems to lie always just round the next, bend. The Shoes From Off Her Feet Wanda Landowska, who has made the recording at present being heard, is a musician who can make us forget to regret that we are born too late to hear Mr. Goldberg himself. The harpsichord must be listened to as an instrument in its own right, and those who transfer this musjc to the piano must review the whole matter afresh, seeking other effects and other interpretation. Let us not be misled by the easy flow of Landowska’s

playing into thinking that the harpsichord is a simple, old-time instrument. She has two manuals to manage and some very elaborate pedal work. Indeed, when she plays in public she wears a particularly long frock to hide the fact that she has taken off her shoes and put on heavy, hand-knitted socks, the better to deal with these pedals. So, too, did Mr. Goldberg surreptitiously kick the shoes off his tired feet in the small hours of the morning as the voice came from the insomniac couch, "Just run through them again will you, Goldberg. I think I may get the hang of them next time."

D.F.

T.

The Goldberg Variations are being broadcast by 2YC, beginning on October 6, and continuing at times to be announced.