Jan 4 (Aria FINAL & Var 1)

Had a very productive session today! After listening to yesterday's recording of the Aria, two thoughts occurred to me. First, I was playing too fast. Second, I was not happy with that recording. Here is what will be my final recording of the Aria, at least for now.



I mentioned in passing the other day that there's an "impossible" spot in the Aria. With the help of my coach (aka Rosie), I have discovered that it's only impossible if you believe the editor. Check out the following image:

The editor wants you to hold that top note in the bass clef, while playing the three descending notes, starting with your *thumb*. How on earth?? OK, but here's later in the piece:

Either the editor or the composer made a mistake. I'm going with editor. So I'm not holding that top note, although I have found a couple of ways to make it work.

The first variation, which I mentioned yesterday I've already worked on a bit, is coming back very quickly. The first part I'm pretty happy with already, though I'm landing really hard after the "opposite arpeggios"; as you'll hear, the second part still needs a lot of work.



Let me reiterate that I'm a rank amateur at form and analysis, but I want to talk a little about the cool things happening here anyway. You might have heard it said that Bach plays little games in his pieces; there's a famous song where he spells his own name with the notes several times (H being a B natural, naturally). Here's a quick rundown: WQXR.org There are details here, too, that suggest a kind of playfulness. 

First, full disclosure: I *do* think that top note is meant to be held; I think only the '1' is a mistake by the editor. I think Bach is playing with the performer here, by setting up expectations and then shattering them. 

There's also some lovely parallelism happening here. The above images show an 'echo'; something happens in one key, and then later something similar happens in a different key. There's a lot of that in this movement. See for example the first bar of each half:

The top image is the first bar of Variation 1, the bottom is the first bar of the second half. Similar, but different, and in different keys. I'm pretty sure that's what the Goldbergs are all about, in a nutshell. We'll see if I can do that theme justice as we move through the variations.