Multiple "Goldberg” Variations from Lang Lang

Lang Lang performing at the St. Thomas Church (courtesy of Universal Music Group)

One week from today Deutsche Grammophon will release its “Deluxe Edition” album of Lang Lang performing Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 988 set of 30 variations on an aria theme, best known as the “Goldberg Variations.” What makes this album “deluxe” is that it consists of four CDs, the first two recorded in studio, followed by a single-take recording of the music performed in recital at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, where Bach worked as Kapellmeister (music director) from 1723 until his death in 1750. In that position Bach was responsible for music education, as well as performances of music at church services.

The “nickname” for BWV 988 comes from Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. His connection to this music comes primarily from Johann Nikolaus Forkel’s biography of Bach. According to Forkel, Goldberg worked in the service of Count Hermann Karl von Keyserling, a Russian diplomat posted to the electoral court of Saxony. The Count often suffered from insomnia, and Goldberg would play for him late at night. The Count was particularly pleased with the variations and presented Bach with “a golden goblet filled with 100 louis-d'or” (quote from Forkel).

Whether or not that story is true, what is more important is that BWV 988 was one of the few Bach compositions to be published in his lifetime. It appeared as the fourth and last of Bach’s Clavier-Übung (keyboard exercise) volumes, published in 1741. The English translation of the title page is as follows:

Keyboard exercise, consisting of an ARIA with diverse variations for harpsichord with two manuals. Composed for connoisseurs, for the refreshment of their spirits, by Johann Sebastian Bach, composer for the royal court of Poland and the Electoral court of Saxony, Kapellmeister and Director of Choral Music in Leipzig. Nuremberg, Balthasar Schmid, publisher.

The implication is that this was music for performers but that listeners might enjoy “refreshment of their spirits.”

That said, there is a tendency among both performers and listeners to regard BWV 988 as the musical equivalent of some significant mountain to be scaled, such as Everest or Fuji. As an amateur keyboardist, I have always felt that the music was out of my league. Nevertheless, I have lost track of the number of times I have attended performances of the piece in its entirety, the most memorable of which was when András Schiff visited San Francisco in October of 2013. He prepared a program that coupled BWV 988 with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 120 “Diabelli” variations, then taking as an encore the variations movement that concludes Beethoven’s Opus 111 piano sonata in C minor. What I remember most, however, was the notes about BWV 988 that Schiff prepared for the program book, in which he approached the entire composition as a journey for both performer and listener.

Schiff was particularly attentive to the bass line, regarding it as the foundation (literally and figuratively) for everything else that unfolds from the keyboard work. Ever since then, I have always let the keyboardist’s approach to the bass line guide me through my listening experience. In that context I would say that Lang Lang definitely communicated a clear account of that bass line. That does not mean that he hammered it out to make sure that all listeners “got the message.” Rather, he performed in such a way that the attentive listener could sort out Bach’s rich capacity for embellishment from what was being embellished at the heart of it all.

From that point of view, I am not entirely convinced of the value of packaging a studio account with a concert performance. Any differences unfold quite some distance from that bass line, and I suspect that further differences will arise with subsequent performances. More important is that Lang Lang clearly knows how to account for what Bach is saying through this music, and he conveys that knowledge with a clarity that has eluded many other pianists trying to take on this composition. Thus, over the course of listening to the entire package that Deutsche Grammophon has prepared, I came away as satisfied as I had felt after I had experienced Schiff’s ambitious approach to programming.