Bach: The Goldberg Variations (Cambridge Music Handbooks).by Williams New<|

Bach: The Goldberg VariationsAuthor(s): Peter Williams\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521807357, 978-0521807357\nSynopsis\nMany listeners and players are fascinated by Bach's Goldberg Variations. In this wideranging and searching study, Professor Williams, one of the leading Bach scholars of our time, helps them probe its depths and understand its uniqueness. He considers the work's historical origins, especially in relation to all Bach's Clavierbung volumes and late keyboard works, its musical agenda and its formal shape, and discusses significant performance issues. In the course of the book he poses a number of key questions. Why should such a work be written? Does the work have both a conceptual and a perceptual shape? What other music is likely to have influenced the Goldberg and to what extent is it trying to be encyclopedic? What is the canonic vocabulary? How have contemporaries or mu?