Goldberg Variations

Bach's music has always attracted arrangers and orchestrators - such as Stokowski, Elgar and Busoni, to name but three. Regardless of the original version, Bach's music possesses an expressivity, drama and architectural logic that lends itself well to expanded orchestral sonorities. Bassoonist and conductor Robin O'Neill immersed himself in the Goldberg Variations, which he discovered through Glenn Gould's recordings in the early months of the Covid lockdown. Soon the idea of creating an orchestral arrangement began to occupy him as he started to hear instrumental and orchestral sonorities in the piano version. Because the greatest challenge was to re-clothe the music without compromising the subtle complexity of the piece, O'Neill chose, after much deliberation and experimentation, instruments that Bach himself would have chosen for the solo parts. His reinterpretation of the Goldberg Variations offers a mix of fully notated variations alternated with concertante variations with two, three or four solo instruments, which sometimes approach the style of the Matthew Passion. This arrangement was completed in a difficult time and was, in O'Neill's words, written in the hope that it would express the joy and comfort that Bach's music brings to both performer and listener.