Variations on the Goldberg IV

The Goldberg Variations, published by Bach in 1741, is beloved by musicians. Those who don’t play a keyboard instrument have been quick to arrange it for their own specialties. We’ll continue our examination with more ensemble versions and some other arrangements.

To remind you, here’s Glenn Gould’s 1981 recording of the first variation on piano.

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 – Variatio 1. a 1 Clav. (Glenn Gould, piano)

Johann Sebastian Bach playing the organ, c. 1881

In this arrangement of Variation 1 for septet, the melody gets tossed from instrument to instrument, and all of a sudden, this seems more like a muzak version of Bach!

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (arr. H. Breuer for septet) – Variatio 1. a 1 Clav. (Goldberg-Septett)

When arranged for saxophone, the number of different saxophones permits the sound to be unified while the soprano can take the melody and decorate it to a certain degree. Soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone sax are all used here.

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (arr. A. Hastedt, M. Maier, F. Schüssler and M. Weiss for saxophone ensemble): Variatio 1. a 1 Clav. (Sax Allemande)

To return to a genre we looked at earlier, arranging the Goldberg for strings has been popular, from string trio, as we heard above, to string quartet and quintet and ending with strings and continuo.

The arrangement for string quartet, which always has doubled violin parts, shifts the emphasis to the upper voices while the lower voices (viola and cello) work on counterpoint.

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (arr. F. Meïmoun for string quartet) – Variatio 1. a 1 Clav. (Quatuor Ardeo)

When you add an additional lower voice in the double bass (and slow the tempo down), you can hear the contrapuntal interplay much more clearly.

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (arr. Katsuya Matsubara for string quintet) – Variatio 1. a 1 Clav. (Katsuya Matsubara, Takako Yamasaki, violins; Shota Yanase, viola; Tomoya Kikuchi, cello; Shu Yoshida, double bass)

In 1999, Bernard Labadie arranged the Goldberg for strings and continuo. He wanted to make an arrangement just as a musician from Bach’s time would have done. His goal ‘was not to produce a faithful transcription of the work, but instead to assimilate the mind-frame of an 18th-century musician for whom naturalness was far more important than respect for the text. I have endeavored to comply with the musical conventions governing the instrumental language of the new medium (a string orchestra with continuo, often divided into smaller instrumental groups) rather than produce a servile transcription of keyboard idioms, which would clearly have resulted in textures and sound that no 18th-century musician or listener would have recognised’.

At the same time, Labadie goes on to note that ‘Paradoxically, compliance with the spirit and the custom, in other words a historically based approach to arrangement, gave me greater freedom to add to, subtract from and re-work the original score to clothe it convincingly in its new garb or, in other words, to create something new from something old, exactly as a Baroque musician would have done’.

Some of his changes included completing incomplete melodic lines (a harpsichordist only has 10 fingers, after all!), splitting a single line over two voices, deleting some secondary motifs and temporary voice divisions, and translating idiomatic keyboard motifs into string motifs. At the same time, he was restricted by the fact that the pitch range of a string ensemble is smaller than that of a keyboard and so some voices had to have their ranges compressed. He also added a thorough bass in most variations.

Labadie found that he was inviting listeners to compare his arrangement with what he considers ‘one of the outstanding creations of the human mind’ and asked them to understand that this should be listened to as something that is independent and different and shouldn’t be listened to with constant reference to the keyboard version.

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (arr. B. Labadie for strings and continuo) – Variation 1: a 1 Clav. (Les Violons du Roy; Bernard Labadie, cond.)

Returning to ensembles, as arranged for a percussion ensemble of 3 marimbas and 2 vibraphones, we have a woody sound, but a lively presentation.

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (arr. for percussion ensemble) – Variatio 1. a 1 Clav. (Ensemble Tactus)

The Canadian Brass also made a recording of the Goldberg, as arranged by American composer Arthur Franckenpohl. The overall effect, in contrast with many of the quick and driving arrangements we’ve heard early, is almost a lazy sound.

J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (arr. A. Frackenpohl for brass ensemble) – Variatio 1. a 1 Clav. (Canadian Brass)

We’ll close with one unusual ensemble – that of harmonicas. The arranger and performer, Gianluca Littera, uses four different Suzuki harmonicas: the “Bass Harmonica”, which is played only by exhaling; the “Chords Harmonica”, which plays combinations of sounds so that common chords (major, minor, augemented, and diminished) can be played by exhaling and inhaling; and the “Chromatic Harmonica Sirius” and “Chromatic Harmonica Chromatix”, which opens the whole of a keyboards black and white keys to the performer. On a 16-hole chromatic harmonica, 64 notes (the equivalent of 8 octaves) can be played. Remember that a piano has 88 notes.