# About Goldberg Variations from J.S Bach



## joe wang (Oct 14, 2014)

Forgive me I am a new guy just being here . If I post this question in the wrong place . Please kindly let me know .Thanks.

I think I am just like other guys who love Bach music especially for the work Goldberg Variations. I Just wonder why Bach compose this work. So I was trying to find out the reason of it by searching in the internet.

And found something talking about it .

http://www.geocities.jp/imyfujita/goldberg/part2e.html#ch201

"After a while, when Count Von Keyserlingk happened to visit my house in Leipzig, he asked me to compose a kind of music which can soothe his insomnia. One of the Count's sons was studying at the Leipzig University, and the Count came here several times in these two years. For healing his insomnia, variations might have so-so force against it. I decided to finish these variations under development at that time, and after that to present it to the Count. Johann Gottlieb Goldberg has been an eligible young harpsichordist these days. And he is a musician exclusively belonging to the Count. Any way, Goldberg performs that work, and my expectations will be accomplished."

Apparently this is from Bach himself. But I just want to know why Count Von Keyserlingk suffer from insomnia? Why Bach think variations can soothe his insomnia?

BTW. Some musicians said they felt misery when playing or listening to this work.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

I think the best answer is Bach did it because he could.

The Forkel story is sixty years after the events, Goldberg would have been about 14 at the time, the manuscript has no dedication suggesting that the idea of a gift is wrong. Another version of the Forkel story says that the "the count was often ill and had sleepless nights". Presumably the count enjoyed music, much as we sometimes read to enable us to go to sleep.

The printed edition describes itself as a:



> 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 title "Clavier Ubung" had been used by Bach for i) the six partitas ii) the Italian Concerto and French Overture and iii) a set of organ chorales. Bach certainly thought music had the power to lift the spirits.


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