Piano/Keyboard
SKU:
SU.12800062
For
Piano/Keyboard.
Composed by Johann
Sebastian Bach. Keyboard,
Piano/Harpsichord. Score.
Subito Music Corporation
#12800062. Published by
Subito Music Corporation
(SU.12800062).
Goldberg
Variations, BWV 988
(3-page Preface, 63
pages, edited for piano,
no fingerings). This
attractive Urtext of
Bach’s popular
variation cycle is not
only extremely
user-friendly and
extra-legible, but in
addition, presents
groundbreaking
performance practice
research that explains
Bach’s
never-before-revealed
plan of tempo
relationships between
variations. This
discovery is highly
significant with regards
to the tempi chosen for
the 30 variations in a
complete performance. The
first edition from 1741,
engraved by Bach himself,
shows fermatas after
some, but not all,
variations. Most editors
assume this was an
oversight by Bach, and
thus, add fermatas where
they do not belong.
Virtually all editions of
our time add fermatas
where Bach did not
indicate them. Perhaps
the only edition that
correctly reproduces
Bach’s fermata
indications is Peters
(ed. Kurt Soldan, 1937).
Mapping out Bach’s
fermata plan for the
complete cycle reveals an
ingenious and fascinating
symmetrical arrangement
of pairs and groups of
variations unified by
direct tempo
relationships.
Bach’s tempo plan
has never yet been
honored by commercial
artists because they have
been steeped in false,
19th-century tempo
traditions, they have
been too influenced by
Glenn Gould, and they
have never been made
aware of Bach’s
use of fermatas due to
faulty editions.
Bach’s master plan
is beautifully laid out
and all the tempo
relationships are
explained in the
three-page Preface, which
also contains a tempo
hierarchy matrix relevant
to Bach performance as
well as Bach’s
well-known Table of
Ornaments. This edition
is ideal for pianists
from the
late-intermediate levels
and higher as well as
concert artists,
scholars, and teachers
who seek an informative
edition of the Goldberg
Variations for the
concert hall or teaching
studio. Piano/Keyboard
Published by:
BachScholar.
Goldberg Variations
