The New Goldberg Variations

Programme notes and the “Journey” of the first performance of the New Goldberg Variations project

Sinfonia Smith Square, 2nd February 2025

Bach’s music is the only argument proving the creation of the Universe cannot be regarded as a complete failure. Without Bach, God would be a complete second-rate figure (Emil Cioran)

BY CRISTIAN SANDRIN

Johann Sebastian Bach: Aria mit verschiedenen Veränderungen Goldberg-Variationen BWV 988

Regarded by many as a pinnacle of the piano repertoire The Goldberg Variations are a perennial presence in concert hall programmes, appearing in an ever growing number of professional recordings, prize winning fiction novels, even Holly-wood movies (worth remembering The Silence of the Lambs, where Hannibal Lector’s wicked and perfect prison escape plan is put into practise as he turns on the record player on Variation no. 7). As well as being one of Bach’s supremely intellectual oeuvre The Gold-bergs have fortunately crossed into the popular culture through the ageless tune of the opening Aria. 

The Goldbergs have already entered the realm of myth thanks to a legend emerging from one of Bach’s first biographies - inevitably a document viewed with much scepticism by today’s music historians. The story recounts of a certain count from Dresden, Count Keyserlingk, who was suffering from agonisingly sleepless nights. The count eventually commissioned this work from Kappelmeister Bach from Leipzig, essentially as a remedy to relieve him from his insomnia. These variations of considerable length were intended to be performed by the count’s renowned harpsichord-virtuoso Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. One must regard this story with a certain distrust.

A sequence of thirty variations arise from the Aria’s harmonic structure which is cast as the guiding light of this awe-inspiring musical and emotional odyssey. The music meanders through high and lows, moments of utter stillness and passages of mind-boggling bravura. They outline nearly all of Bach’s compositional techniques: canons, fugues, dances, toccatas, preludes and French overtures. It is essentially a digest of Bach’s unfathomably immense body of work, an output that always awaits to be discovered, and which in turn can shed a new light on how we perceive these variations. The Goldbergs are not merely a transient experience, but can grow into the listening of a lifetime. 

Bach’s scheme of variations follows the bass-line of the Aria – meaning that all of Bach’s variations correspond to the same bass-line or harmonic sequence as the theme. This is not a novel model, but a technique that had been used by composers for a long time. It was called passacaglia. In fact Bach breaks with the norm innumerable times, altering the harmonic sequence, changing the metre of the variations, inserting variations in altogether different keys (in G minor, as opposed to the G major of the Theme). No doubt that some moments in the Goldbergs would have sounded eccentric to Bach’s contemporaries – some may seem strange even to us, today. 

For this reason, we have commissioned three new variations by three contemporary composers, Louise Drewett, Philip Dutton and Farhad Poupel. Each composer has been asked to write a short work, a variation on Bach’s Aria - Thema. All new variations take the bass-line of the Aria as a starting point, after which they diverge in three completely different directions. The New Goldberg Variations are offsprings of Bach’s work, and express each composer’s imagination in a different way: crucially, we will find that Bach’s Goldbergs will be revealed to us in a new light too.  

The Goldbergs encompass dances from all over Europe, they are a veritable travelogue for the court-dancer of the 18th Century: Variation 7 is a Gigue (a traditional English dance), Variation 4 is a Passepied (French-Breton dance), Variation 1 sounds like a Polonaise (obviously a Polish court-dance), Variation 21 is a slow Allemande (German dance), Variations 13 and 25 are both Sarabandes (slow dances from Spain) and the list goes on. Hence why Iranian-born Farhad Poupel’s variation, Reng, takes the dance as its starting point – reng is a traditional Persian dance. Farhad’s dance follows Bach’s bass-line,  but it is composed in the minor key (just like variations 15, 21 and 25).

Another aspect of Bach’s variations is the use of canons, where the same melody is repeated, successively. Bach overlaps a melody with its own imitation. The imitation may come two or three beats later, hence it never overlaps perfectly with the melody. This is a very difficult composition technique, a manner of composition which flourished during the Renaissance, Early Baroque and in Bach’s own day. Bach composes a canon for every third variation, moreover – he changes the interval between the melody and its imitation accordingly. Variation 3 is titled Canone all’Unisuono – this means that between the melody and its imitation there is an interval of unison. This would be a challenge in itself, but Bach goes further and composes 8 more canons in all possible intervals (from unison, to seconds, thirds and finally ninths). Instead of a Cannone alla Decima (Canon at a Tenth) we have a Quodlibet - the final variation. This is where Louise Drewett steps in, and composes the missing Cannone alla Decima. Louise’s composition is a strict canon, more strict than any of Bach’s canons: it is a single thread in the right hand which is closely followed by its perfect imitation at the interval of a Major Tenth. Louise’s composition aims to draw our attention to the interaction of these two identical melodic threads: they spin around each other creating audible and inaudible imitations, alternating between crackling and eerie-like harmonies. 

Finally, Philip Dutton’s composition is a play on the word variation itself. Philip contemplates the word Goldberg and looks into its German significance, which would translate as Golden Mountain. Composed in a modernist fashion,  the piece takes various elements of the bass-line and scatters them all around the work. The only aurally recognisable element from Bach appears in the lowest octave of the piano: a rhythmically distorted version of the Aria’s melody. Afterwards, the piece turns away from music and contemplates a work from the visual arts: Nicholas Roerich’s painting The Golden Mountain (1944), where mystical hues illuminate the mountain peaks. The roar of the mountain begins to be heard in the lowest notes of the piano against twinkling permutations in the highest octave of the piano. Philip’s piece emphasised the physical gesture of playing on two extremes of the keyboard, the lowest and the high register of the piano – a gesture that is omnipresent in Bach’s virtuosic variations, but escapes us, because we forget that keyboard instruments during Bach’s time were much narrower than today’s modern piano. Mid-way through the piece, the two opposed sides of the keyboard converge into each other and develop into a frenzied rhythmic canon driving the music back into the original Goldbergs. 

The Journey of The Goldberg Variations

Aria - Thema

Variation 1 - hand-crossing curling scales, a dance, maybe a polonaise

Variation 2 - a serious conversation between two old good friends, at times they poke fun at each other

Variation 3 - Cannone all’Unisono: naïvity cast into a prelude, its imitation is inescapable like a shadow

Variation 4 - a passepied with trumpets signaling the arrival of a surprise guest: the court virtuoso

Variation 5 - the harpsichord master performs spellbinding tricks on the manuals: blistering fast scales with notes bobbing up and down the keyboard

Variation 6 - Cannone alla Seconda: two voices that contemplate each others’ perfect guise within the mirror. 

New Variation: Reng by Farhad Poupel

Variation 7 - a fast yet delicate Gigue, the audience claps as one

Variation 8 - streams of arpeggios in both hands that meet in the middle and become entangled

Variation 9 - Cannone alla Terza: un unperturbed canon in thirds

Variation 10 - a strong-willed idea, growing into the semblance of a proper fugue

Variation 11 - a waterway: an outflow of very quick, tightly entwined scales in both hands

Variation 12 - Cannone alla Quarta: a composed canon at fourths, inverted 

Variation 13 - an imperturbable Sarabande

Variation 14 - tremors in the ground lead to melodic outbreak

Variation 15 - Cannone alla Quinta: the first minor variation, an other-wordly canon at fifths, inverted. Impenetrable melodic imitations that produce eerie harmonies

Variation 16 - the keystone of the set: a resplendent French ouverture followed by a stretto fugue

Variation 17 - a musical duet conveying the image of the warping stairs of Escher – the printmaker

Variation 18 - Cannone alla Sexta: a high-spirited rollicking canon in 6ths, stretto

Variation 19 - a fast menuet, three voices, an intimation of the organ sonority

Variation 20 - hand-crossing oscillating jumps and spinning runs in thirds. Fireworks.

Variation 21 - Cannone alla Settima: the second gloomy minor variation, an inexorable canon in sevenths. Dark earthbound dissonant sonorities. A slow Allemande. 

Variation 22 - crack of dawn. Nature is awakened by the sway of the morning sun. Droplets of dew. 

New Variation - Kanchejunga (The Golden Mountain of India) by Philip Dutton

Variation 23 - a deluge of scales running down the keyboard. Rapturous.

Variation 24 - Cannone all’Ottava: a pastoral canon in octaves

Variation 25 - an exquisite supplication in the minor key

Variation 26 - a collage of whirlwind scales against and sarabande rhythms

Variation 27 - Cannone alla Nona: a duet in sevenths. A quarrel

Variation 28 - clocks and glockenspiels ring against a shimmer of trills

Variation 29 - a batterie signals the looming victory

New Variation: Cannone alla Decima by Louise Drewett

Variation 30 - quodlibet. Same bassline as Variation 22. Two popular songs are juxtaposed in insightful ways. 

Aria - Da capo 

BIOGRAPHIES OF COMPOSERS

Louise Drewett is a British composer, based in London. ‘Clearly a talent with a very distinct sensibility’ (The Telegraph), Louise writes music that draws on her formative experience working with community choirs. Her music has been commissioned and performed by ensembles and institutions including the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the International Guitar Foundation and ABRSM. Her community opera ‘Daylighting’ was nominated for an Ivor Novello Award at the Ivors Composer Awards 2022. Louise is a Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, co-directs Sing Healthy Choirs and is acting Artistic Director of the New London Chamber Choir. She holds a PhD in Composition from the RAM where she studied on a scholarship with Philip Cashian, Hans Abrahamsen and Oliver Knussen.

Farhad Poupel is a UK-based Iranian composer whose works have been/will be performed at prestigious venues like Suntory Hall (Tokyo), National Opera (Warsaw), and Sage Gateshead (Newcastle). His music has been/will be interpreted by renowned artists/orchestras such as Peter Jablonski, Kotaro Fukuma and the National Symphony Orchestra (US) and featured on BBC Radio 3 and NPR Radio 4. Drawing inspiration from literature, mythology, art, and cinema, Poupel blends influences from composers like Sibelius, Brahms, and Ravel, as well as his own heritage, creating a distinct musical voice. Born in Isfahan, Iran, he trained under Saeed Sharifian. He debuted internationally in 2019 with Zayande-Rud, performed by the Windsor Symphony Orchestra and has been performed and commissioned worldwide ever since. Farhad Poupel is currently the holder of the prestigious Global Talent visa which allows him to work on a range of composition projects with the international community of musicians.

Philip Dutton is a British-Czech composer whose music is increasingly heard internationally. Between 2022-24, Philip was a Britten Pears Young Artist, a London Philharmonic Orchestra Young Artist, and a Royal Philharmonic Society Composer. He is currently working on a new commission for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s 2025/26 season. His music, often colourful and direct, draws upon his rich Czech-British-Jewish cultural heritage for inspiration. Performers of Philip’s music include the BBC Singers, ORA Singers, Engegård Quartet, EXAUDI, clarinettist Scott Lygate, conductors Jonathan Berman and Brett Dean, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. His works have been performed in venues across the UK and Europe including the Aldeburgh International Festival, Brucknerhaus Linz, Cadogan Hall, Lille Opera, Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall, and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3.