Midnight with Goldberg

The story goes that a certain Hermann Carl, Count Keyserlingk, was in poor health and suffered from insomnia. This count had a young house musician in his service, named Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. When Bach once paid a visit, Carl suggested that he “would like to have a few clavier pieces for his Goldberg, of such a gentle and cheerful character that he might be somewhat enlivened by them during his sleepless nights.” Bach set to work, resulting in the highly virtuosic Goldberg Variations.

Whether this anecdote is true, no one knows. Nevertheless, it forms the inspiration for this candlelight concert around midnight. The outstanding Dutch pianist Hannes Minnaar performs the famous cycle.

The work begins and ends with an enchantingly beautiful Aria. Not the Aria’s melody itself, but its descending bass line forms the foundation of the thirty contrasting variations. The overarching architecture of the variations is astonishing.

Halfway through, Minnaar interrupts the cycle with a performance of Daan Manneke’s Gedanken zu Bach: Ach wie flüchtig, ach wie nichtig as an intermezzo. The work consists of six short movements, which Manneke composed during the COVID pandemic especially for this purpose and dedicated to the pianist. At its core lies the nearly identically titled German hymn from 1652 by poet-composer Michael Franck.

The final Goldberg variation also contains a reference—this time to a popular German song, “I have been away from you for so long.” This is Bach at his most playful, as it is followed by the Aria with which it all began.

After that, sleep well.