Millicent Silver (1905 – 1986), Goble harpsichord, BWV 988
Released 1964 by Saga Records.

“The Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) remained a favourite and featured repeatedly in her recital programmes. She played them from memory, and a performance was always preceded by much soul-searching and several months of intensive practice. Sometimes she would play them as the second half of a concert in whose first part she performed Bach flute sonatas with John Francis. Sometimes she played them as a whole concert, with every repeat even in the final reprise of the Aria, and a pause before the French Overture, Variation 16.”
Source: Bach Cantatas Website

The theme which forms the basis of the Goldberg Variations
is to be found in Anna Magdalena’s “Little Notebook .. It is the
Sarabande which follows the well-known aria “Bist du bei Mir.”
It is known that Bach was not fond of variations as a musical
for;n and we owe the existence of this monumental work to the
insomnia of a Russian Envoy, Count Kayserling, and the remarkable
virtuosity of his harpsichordist Johann Gottlieb Goldberg.
The origin of the Variations is given in the following extract from
Forkel’s life :of J. S. Bach:
“Count Kayserling’ fell very ill and could not sleep at night.
Goldberg, who lived with him, had on these occasions to spend
the night in an adjoining room, so as to ,be able to play to him
when sleepless, Once the Count said that he would like Bach to
write some harpsichord pieces for Goldberg, of a quiet and at
the same time cheerful character, that would brighten him up it
little on his sleepless nigh IS, Bach ‘ though t the best thing for
the purpose would be some variations – a form which he had
previously thought rather little of, by reason of the persistence of
the same basic harmony throughout …. The Count always called
them his variations. He could not near them often enough,
and for a long time, whenever he had a sleepless night, it was
‘Dear Goldberg, play me one of my variations.’ Bach was perhaps
never so well rewarded for any of his works as for this, The
count gave him a golden goblet, containing 100 louis d’or.”
That the Variations were written for performance on a two
manual harpsichord is not open to doubt. The score directs that
two manuals are obligatory in ten of the variations and desirable
in three others. Until recent years performance was considered
impossibie on the pianoforte, with its single ‘keyboard, but
modern technical devices have almost overcome the difficulties
caused by frequent crossing of the parts and very recently there
have been given some very fine performances on the pianoforte.
Nevertheless no technical device can compensate for the lack of ·
tonal variety nor make up for the harpsichord’s ability to enrich
the texture by doubling the parts an octave above or below, or
both. Since its invention, about two hundred and fifty years ago,
the piano has been enormously developed in power, and as
Schweitzer says: “The more powerful the tone became the duller
the timbre, so that the piano of today no longer suggests in any
way the tone of the instrument of Bach’s time …. The duller
the timbre of an instrument, the less suitable is it for polyphonic
playing … The bass part, too, comes out more clearly
and beautifully on the harpsichord than on any other instrument.”
So it is only on the harpsichord that we can hope to
have a true impression of the Goldberg Variations as they were
conceived by the composer.
The Sarabande, or Aria as it is named, both starts and finishes
the whole work. Each third variation is a canon and in each
canon the interval between the imitative parts is increased by
one step so that the first canon is at the unison, the second at
the interval of a second, the third is a canon at the third and so
on. The final variation is a quodlibet (a collection of different
tunes or fragments of composition brought together as a joke) on
two popular tunes “Long have I been away from thee” and
“Cabbages and Turnips.”
The illustration on the front of this sleeve is a facsimile
reproduction of the title page of the first edition of Bach’s work.
JOHN FRANCIS
© :SAGA RECORDS LID., London, 1964

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