Ravinia 2019, Issue 7, Week 14

By John Schauer To what I suspect is a large majority of Americans, the title The Goldbergs refers to a sitcom about a close-knit but hysterically funny family in 1980s suburban Pennsyl- vania. I recently have come under its spell from reruns on late-night TV. The mar- velously adept ensemble cast includes the delightful Wendi McLendon-Covey as the all-time overbearing if also endearing moth- er of the brood, whose constant meddling in her family’s affairs has earned her the nickname of “smother.” In one choice episode, her husband connives to get her a job at their children’s school by convincing the principal it will provide him with some much-needed leisure time. He goes for the bait, exclaiming, “The harpsichord in our living room has been silent for too long!” The line is meant to elicit a laugh by indicating what a dork he is. It elicited a laugh from me because I do have a harpsichord in my living room. Okay, dining room, technically, but close enough. To someone with a harpsi- chord in their home, or to most lovers of classical music for that matter, “The Goldbergs” is also one of the supreme keyboard works ever composed. Also referred to as the “Goldberg Variations,” the piece was published under the somewhat less pithy title “Keyboard Exercise, consist- ing of an Aria with diverse variations for harpsichord with two manuals.” The name “Goldberg” that has become attached to the piece refers to Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, a harpsichordist in the employ of Count Keyserlingk, an aristocrat who (according to one account) suffered from insomnia and asked Bach to create something that Goldberg could play to cheer him during his sleepless nights. Contrary to popular assumption, they were not meant to lull him to sleep. So if you find yourself dozing off during a performance, there’s something wrong with the performance. Either that, or you hate great music. An enormous number of people in the last century came to know the work through recorded performances on the piano by Glenn Gould (either an eccentric genius or a pretentious crackpot, depending on your viewpoint). But as with so many other things, a woman actually got there first. Born in Warsaw in 1879, Wanda Land- owska began as a pianist but early in her career became fixated on reintroducing the harpsichord to audiences that hadn’t heard that instrument in many decades. She suc- ceeded in spades, becoming synonymous with the harpsichord. Her influence was enormous—my own harpsichord teacher at Northwestern University had studied with students of Landowska—and it was she who, in 1933, gave the first complete performance of the Goldbergs on harpsi- chord in over a century. She also was the first to record the piece, in 1933 and again in 1945; both recordings are still available. It became one of her specialties, and she even had a red velvet gown that she reserved for performances of it. But the harpsichord still had an uphill fight. Although Anthony Newman per- formed the Goldbergs on harpsichord at Ravinia in 1984—the first performance of the Goldbergs on anything in Ravinia’s history!—all nine subsequent Ravinia per- formances in the Martin Theatre have been on piano, as were two performances that accompanied a dance setting by the New York City Ballet in the early ’70s. As Chi- cago-born harpsichordist Jory Vinikour (who will perform the work in Bennett Gordon Hall on August 30) once put it, although “this is a work most specifically written for a two-keyboard harpsichord, this has not in any way hindered marauding hordes of pianists, organists, orchestras, even accordionists, from appropri- ating the piece for their diverse instruments.” I think we can tell where he stands on the issue. Although I studied harp- sichord and own one, I never learned the Goldbergs. My own teacher at NU conditioned me to regard that fiendish set of variations as the last major work one should tackle. So maybe I became subconsciously afraid that I would be struck down if I ever learned it. But not to worry: at this stage of my life, the remnants of my keyboard technique have deteriorated sufficiently that I never will. So I guess I will live forever. John Schauer is a freelance writer whose harpsichord videos can be found on his YouTube page “Revival Harpsichord.” Though the “Goldberg Variations” is not among them, another of Bach’s works, the “Italian Concerto,” has gotten him several thousand views. Which Goldbergs You Talkin’ ’Bout, Willis? AUGUST 26, 2019 – MAY 9, 2020 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 37