In 1741, the Nuremberg music engraver Balthasar Schmid published a new work by Johann Sebastian Bach: "Aria with various variations for harpsichord with two manuals." This work later received the more appealing name Goldberg Variations (BWV 988). The composition for harpsichord consists of an aria and a set of 30 variations.
The origin of these famous variations is linked to an interesting story. According to Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Bach's first biographer, the Goldberg Variations were composed at the behest of the Russian ambassador to the Saxon court, Count Kaiserling. The Count frequently suffered from insomnia. On such nights, his resident musician, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, would play in an adjoining room to cheer him up. Count Bach once asked for some piano pieces for Goldberg, pieces that should be of a "gentle and somewhat cheerful character" to cheer him up during his sleepless nights.
The thirty variations are divided into ten groups of three pieces each. The structure revolves around the magnificent French overture of Variation 16. The aria had already appeared earlier in the Clavier-Büchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach (1725), while the complete work with variations was published in 1741.
Musically speaking, the Goldberg Variations represent a pinnacle that almost every great pianist has attempted to master over the years. It is a fascinating piece that continues to pose riddles and constitutes an important part of Bach's extensive keyboard output.
Bach's own copy of the publication contains numerous corrections as well as 14 canons with the bass line itself as the theme. The discovery of this "hand copy" caused a sensation among Bach scholars in 1974. The Goldberg Variations combine virtuosic elements with elegant character pieces and remain a significant work in music history.