Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, performed by Glenn Gould

Bach wrote these monuments of keyboard music during 1742 while he was the court composer.  Usually, he didn’t like variations per se, but Bach had to feed a family and therefore he agreed when Count Kaiserling, Russian ambassador to the Saxon court, who employed as musician Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, one of Bach’s best pupils, asked Bach to compose restful keyboard music Goldberg could play at night so the insomniac Kaiserling could sleep.  In that can be ornamented.   Bach ranged far beyond and greatly outclassed the melody.  If Goldberg played this so Kaiserling could sleep, he didn’t play it well.   Glenn Gould’s 1955 performance, however, still rates higher than any other.