The Russian ambassador

When Bach was approached by Count Kaiserling, the Russian ambassador in Saxony, he was asked to compose some nice, lighthearted music that would cheer him up in the evenings.

Count Kaiserling suffered from frequent insomnia due to illness, and his court musician, the keyboardist Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, was always asked to play music for him in an adjacent chamber to keep the count´s mood up during his sleepless nights.

Bach, who hadn´t composed any variations before (perhaps due to what he perceived as limitations), thought that this would be the best musical form to satisfy the count´s needs because of the apparent monotony and lightheartedness.

But by then, everything that Bach touched turned to gold. So what came out of that fortunate coincidence was one of his best-known masterpieces:

The famous “Goldberg” variations.

The count liked them so much that he thought of them as “his” own variations, asking Goldberg to please play for him some of “his” variations during the evenings.

Personally, this is one of my favorite works by Bach. It was originally written for a two-manual harpsichord (a type of keyboard instrument that actually has two keyboards), but it is frequently played on the piano.

The brilliant Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafson has just released his own magnificent recording of the Goldberg Variations. I´ve included his performance of the aria in my Intimate Piano playlist which you can listen to in this link.

Have a beautiful day.

Claudio.