With this installment, let’s close out our exploration of the Goldberg Variations.
We’re starting out at Variation 25, for two manuals. It’s marked “adagio”, in 3/4, and the third and last one of the set in minor mode. It consists of an intricate and lyrical melody over slower moving harmonies provided by the bottom two voices, structurally somewhat reminiscent of variation 13.
Variation 26 is one in the “moto perpetuo” style – one hand always moving in rolling sixteenths, notated in the strange time signature of 18/16, while the opposite hand, in 3/4, plays what is essentially a sarabande. The hands switch roles a couple of times throughout the piece.
Variation 27 is the last formal canon of the set, this one at the ninth. It’s notable for not having a bass line, causing the harmonic progression a bit harder to follow.
Next is Variation 28, a virtuosic toccata in 3/4, which requires plenty of hand-crossing. The predominant element is sequences of 7 thirty-second notes, resembling written-out trills, for long stretches in both hands. When not present, both hands move largely in contrary motion in sixteenths.
Variation 29, notated “for 1 or 2 keyboards”, continues and amplifies the virtuosic, improvisatory character of the previous one. Brilliant chords that break up the beats alternate with long sequences of sixteenth notes that are passed back and forth between the hands, three notes at a time.
In place of another strict canon to close the set, Bach creates a “Quodlibet”, by combining well-known tunes over a bass line that follows the fixed harmonic sequence quite overtly. Scholars have long debated which songs the tunes belong to, and what were their texts. The second one has been pretty unanimously associated with “Kraut und Rüben” (“Cabbage and turnips”), a popular children’s song. The first one has proven to be more difficult to identify. Michael Marissen, in an interesting 2021 paper, challenges the notion that Quodlibets had necessarily have to be built on folk or popular songs, and suggests that the first tune is the hymn “Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan”, embedding a sort of “Soli Deo Gloria” signature in the music.
After the Quodlibet, the original score says “Aria da Capo e Fine”, indicating that the opening Aria is to be played again to close the performance.
Christophe Rousset recorded these Goldberg Variations at the Church Of Saint-Hippolyte, Castres, France in 1994. He plays an original harpsichord by Henri Hemsch built in Paris in 1751.
