Johann Sebastien Bach, a German composer and multi-instrumentalist in the

Baroque period, till this day was considered as the most important composer of all time.
Composing an estimated of 280 sacred cantatas, 30 secular cantatas, lot so keyboard music
which includes fugues, two-three part inventions and the book the Well-Tempered Clavier
and many work for orchestra as well like the Brandenberg Concerto and many concerto
grossi, no composer at the time can match him in term of harmony exploration. Bach
brought Baroque music to its maturity and even after his death, which also marked as the
end of Baroque period, his work still influence musicians of later generations. Without him,
we wouldnt see Mozart or Beethoven compose the way we see them today. Bach was born
in a great German musician family in 1658. His father taught him the violin and his older
brother gave him organ and other music lessons. As a Lutherian, Bach music was heavily
influence by his Christian faith. Throughout his life, Bach worked at many church and chapel
as a composer, performer, music tutor and musical director. He was married twice and all of
his sons either died an infant or grew up to be great musicians. Bach performed for various
Count, Dukes and princes till got his final position as the Cantor (musical director) of the
Thomasscule at St.Thomas church in Leipzig. It was here, where he composed the
marvelous piece named Goldberg variations not so long before he died in 1750.

The Goldberg variation (BWV988) was published under the title Clavierbung
(keyboard practice). Although it is a practice, the piece required high technical standard in
performance and explores musical content at an astonishing level. Many variations left the
players with freedom to interpret the music in their own way. Goldberg variation was
considered as the most serious and ambitious piece written for harpsichord containing all
sorts of Baroque technique and characters within in one set of variations. The aim and
origin of the piece root down to the famous tale told by two of Bach son that Bach wrote this
variation for Goldberg, a put upon musician to play for his boss, a former Russian
ambassador named Count Kaierling. The count always had trouble sleeping at night until he
got to listen to the GB variation. The count was so satisfy with the Bach work that he
rewarded Bach with a goblet Louis dor. Although the story sounds attractive to hear, the
amount of truth behind it remains uncertain. The Goldberg variations starts and ends with
the Aria. Between those two endpoints lie 30 variations, organized in ten groups of three
variations. The 3-variation groups always start with a piece of different structure (a
fughetta, a dance, a two- or three-part invention etc.). Follows by a virtuoso piece (often
difficult to play), and ended with a canon. In the first canon, 'All unisono', the follow voice is
the same as the leading one. In the second one ('Alla Seconda'), the second voice starts one
tone (major second) higher, and so on until the canon 'Alla Nona', where the interval
between the two voices is a 9
th
. The leading voice and follow one is usually a bar apart. And
all canons have a supporting bass line except the 27
th
variation. For the last set of three
pieces, Bach replaced what suppose to be a canon with a 'Quodlibet' which the bass line is
taken from two popular German songs at the time, 'Ich bin so lang nicht bei dir g'west' and
'Kraut und Rben haben mich vertrieben'.