The Goldberg Variations Revisited: Multi-Composer Works, Poststructuralism, and the Open Work Concept (2024)

Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations Reimagined (1)

Erinn E Knyt

Published:

2024

Online ISBN:

9780197690659

Print ISBN:

9780197690628

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Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations Reimagined (1)

Erinn E Knyt

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Erinn E Knyt

Erinn E Knyt

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Pages

71–110

  • Published:

    May 2024

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Knyt, Erinn E, 'The Goldberg Variations Revisited: Multi-Composer Works, Poststructuralism, and the Open Work Concept', Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations Reimagined, 1 (New York, NY, 2024; online edn, Oxford Academic, 2 May 2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197690659.003.0004, accessed 25 May 2024.

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Abstract

This chapter provides the first overview of multi-author compositions based on Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Instead of creating a single work that is the culmination of a lifetime of achievement and experience, as Bach did, several composers collectively present diverse contemporary perspectives on the music and techniques of Bach. Although multi-composer re-compositions might not display the same type of structural unity as Bach’s original, the pieces nevertheless explore and capitalize on aspects of stylistic variety that are inherent in Bach’s composition. Many of the multi-author collaborations, which are not usually simple direct reinterpretations of an authoritative text or a composer’s intentions, can also be seen as encompassing circular textual dialogues as Bach’s music becomes generative and an infinite or open text in which multiple people, including subsequent (re)-composers and performers enter into mutual textual conversations about the pieces.

Keywords: J. S.Bach, Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, open work concept, multi-author composition, Diabelli Variations, intertextuality, stylistic plurality, deconstructionism, indeterminacy

Subject

Musicology and Music History Music Reception History Music and Culture

Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

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