回复: 歌德堡变奏曲及其版本
我很挑剔录音的质量,键琴版本中,Gustav Leonhardt几乎就是我唯一常听的。
贴些相关的介绍:
GUSTAV LEONHARDT CEMBALO / HARPSICHORD
(William Dowd, Paris 1975,nach /after Blanchet, Paris 1730)
The Goldberg Variations Not too much credence should be attached to the story initially reported in Johann Nikolaus Forkel's 1802 biography of Bach, that the Goldberg Variations were written to the commission of Count Keyserlingk. In all probability Bach presented his noble sponsor with a copy of the newly printed work on his visit to Dresden in November 1741, and it is certain that Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (1727 – 56), the highly gifted pupil of J. S. and W. F. Bach, and Keyserlingk's harpsichordist, often played the work to his master – probably in reality to while away the latter's sleepless nights. But there is no trace of a formal dedication to the Count on the title page of the 1741 printed edition, as the niceties of 18th century manners would certrainly have demanded. Furthermore, it is more than doubtful whether Bach could have had in mind the capacities of the then only 13 year old Goldberg when he began to compose the work, in 1740 at the latest. It is much more likely that this set of variations, like the three preceding parts of the "Clavier-Übung", were written at Bach's own initiative. The monumental series of "clavier exercises", representing the most important types of keyboard music in exemplary compositions, was destined to receive a cyclically closed major work as its crown and conclusion.
This closing part of the Clavierübung simultaneously opens the series of monothematic contrapuntal instrumental works which occupied the last decade of Bach's life. How much this set of variations may be regarded as a milestone is particularly evident from Bach's manuscript copy which became known to us only in 1975, containing, in addition to important corrections and amendments, a manuscript appendix with "14 canons on the first 8 ground notes of the Aria" (BWV 1087), the new conceptual basis of which was to find fuller expression in the later works (e. g. the Musical Offering). The unusual proportions of the set of variations are already apparent in the length of the theme, which Bach developed from a traditional bass model into a 32-bar ground bass for the aria and its variations. The number of bars and the total number of sections (Aria, 30 variations, Aria da capo) correspond exactly: a perfect proportion. The overall plan and structure of the work mirrors the composer's intended balance of "inventio" and "ratio". The variety of musical forms, types of rhythmic movement, expressive moods and technical refinements is divided into two large sections each containing 15 variations (the second begins with an Overture) and simultaneously finds its backbone in the form of a compelling contrapuntal climax: each third section is a canon, with the imitative intervals climbing steadily from unison to ninth, and at the end stands a Quodibet as a humorous final section, combining the theme of the work with two folktunes ("Kraut and Rüben haben mich vertrieben", "Ich bin so lang nicht bei dir g'west").
Translation: D. D. Jones
GUSTAV LEONHARDT was born in the Netherlands in 1928. He grew up in a musical household and became interested in the harpsichord and organ at an early age. He later studied both instruments under Eduard Müller at the Basel Schola Cantorum.
In 1952 he was appointed Professor of Musicology and harpsichord at the Vienna State Academy of Music. In 1955 he relinquished this position in order to return to Amsterdam, where he now teaches in the Conservatoire and is organist of the French Reformed Church. His international concert career, which dates back to 1950, has included numerous American recital tours and in 1969 he occupied the H. A. Lamb Chair at Harvard University.
As a musicologist he has published a study of Bach's Art of Fugue and has edited Sweelinck's Keyboard Works for the collected edition prepared by the Society for Dutch Music History. Under his editorship a series of 17th century chamber music has been published by Universal Edition. In 1968 he took the principal role in Jean Marie's Straub's Bach film, playing the part of the Cantor of the St. Thomas's, whose music forms the nucleus of Leonhardt's artistic achievement.