Two Goldbergs, 1955 and 1981

Bach’s Goldberg Variations are an aria and thirty variations, and the aria comes back at the end, da capo. Gould recorded them twice for Columbia, both times in the company’s studio on East 30th Street in Manhattan.

June 1955

He was twenty-two, and it was his first record for Columbia. He recorded it in the week of 10 to 16 June 1955 and the record came out in January 1956. The tempi are quick, the repeats mostly omitted, the touch clear and dry. It made his name.

April and May 1981

Twenty-six years later he went back, between 22 April and 29 May 1981, and the film-maker Bruno Monsaingeon was in the studio. The aria now takes far longer, and the whole reads as one long arc that returns to where it began. The record was released in September 1982, a month before he died.

Playing them

A recital of the Goldbergs is a single movement of about an hour. If you are bringing them to a masterclass, start from the first edition of 1741 (the title page is in the catalogue above) and mark where the aria’s bass returns.