To kick off this listening series, I present the Goldberg Variations by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by none other than one of his foremost interpreters, Canadian pianist Glenn Gould.

J.S. Bach lived humbly as a small town musician. He was incredibly prolific not only as a musician but as the father of 20 children, several of whom became notable musicians and composers in their own right. To give you an idea of Bach’s work ethic, in his first few years working in Leipzig he directed the music for four churches, taught schoolchildren, and still managed to write a new cantata every week for Sunday service! At around 20 minutes long, for multiple vocalists and accompanying orchestra, the 209 surviving Bach cantatas are a treat for your ears and a hole in your wallet. During his life, Bach was better known as an organist than a composer. At the court of Frederick the Great, where his son was employed, Bach famously improvised a three voice fugue on a melody given by the king, and subsequently expanded on this theme with a series of elaborate fugues and musical riddles called The Musical Offering.

A “Theme and Variations” is an old musical form where a melody (the theme), is repeated in different versions (the variations). The Goldberg Variations, supposedly written for an insomniac Count, are Bach’s impressive take on this form. Not only are there a staggering 30 variations, but 9 of them are canons. A canon is a clever melody that can be played over itself after a short delay, such as the tune “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” or Pachebel’s Canon in D. Not to be outdone, each of Bach’s canons separates the melody by a different interval (the distance between pitches), from the unison to the 9th. The full score is available here if you want to follow along.

The theme begins as a simple aria (6’22”):

Of all the variations, my personal favorite is number 18, the canon at an interval of the 6th (32’54”). Notice how the top voice (notes with stems pointing up) copies the shape of the bottom voice (stems pointing down):

The final variation is a quodlibet, which is a kind of musical mashup of the popular tunes of Bach’s day (52’08”):

As for Glenn Gould, there are countless books and even a documentary about this Canadian icon. He was not only a prodigy who transformed our understanding of Bach and recorded music, but an eccentric, and several of Gould’s oddities are on display in the video. The low folding chair he sits on was specially adjusted for him as a child, and he carried it to his performances all his life. And if you listen carefully, you will hear the occasional buzzing noise of Gould humming along to his own playing.