It is the start of my second week off from uni, and on Thursday, I'll be at the Melbourne Recital Centre for Erin Helyard performing Bach's Goldberg Variations on harpsichord. Thirty variations unfolding from a single aria, each one its own universe of mathematical precision and emotional depth. I remember Helyard conducting Handel's Messiah with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in December 2024, and I was in the chorus. His direction brought out those moments where text and music fused into something transcendent.
This week, I should finally get access to my units at the new uni. My Learning Access Plan is now active, which feels good after so much advocacy. These accommodations will create conditions that enable my brain to show what it can do rather than what it can't.
Music has always been the language I understand most fluently. In the architecture of Bach's variations, there's something about the way complexity emerges from simplicity that mirrors how I experience learning itself. One foundational idea, endlessly transformed. Each variation is a different lens, a different pathway to understanding. Perhaps that's why the Goldberg Variations feel so essential right now. They remind me that depth isn't about covering more ground but about exploring what's already there with greater attention.
The space between finishing one semester and beginning another holds its own music. Rest isn't absence. It's the silence between notes that gives them meaning.
#ClassicalMusic #Bach #GoldbergVariations #Harpsichord #BaroqueMusic #MelbourneRecitalCentre #AuDHD #Blind #DisabilityAccess #LearningAccessPlan #CounsellingMasters #MusicAndIdentity #Reflection
It's a little weird that if I wanted to explain how I work now, referring back to my experiments with the rompler orchestrations of Bach is a pretty immediate and direct solution.
Ein neues Arrangement für Rompler von Zali Krishna in digitaler Stereoton 1955 is where we must begin, in our search for the roots of the 21st Century...
Johann Sebastian #Bach 14 #Canons on the first eight fundamental notes of the aria from the #GoldbergVariations
BWV 1087 https://imslp.org/wiki/14_Canons,_BWV_1087_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian) holograph #manuscript
Barenreiter ed of these canons that were newly discovered in 1975...
https://www.barenreiter.co.uk/fourteen-canons-on-the-first-eight-notes-of-the-aria-ground-from-the-goldberg-variations-bwv-1087.html #modernedition
AmericanMathematicalSociety article Surface Topology in Bach Canons, I: The Möbius Strip by Tony Phillips. It is based on work with Eric Altschuler, published in Musical Times in 2015.
https://plus.maths.org/content/topology-music-m-bius-strip #BachCanons
Hudba na odpledne:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4yAB37wG5s
#glenngould #GoldbergVariations Variations
On This Day 5 July: #WandaLandowska Was Born
"... born to Jewish parents in Warsaw on 5 July 1879, played a seminal role in reviving the popularity of the harpsichord in the early 20thC. A champion of 17th & 18thC music and the leading figure in the revival of the #harpsichord, Landowska was the first person to record Bach’s #GoldbergVariations on that instrument in 1933....”
https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-5-july-wanda-landowska-was-born/
July 5th, 2022 by Georg Predota
Johann Sebastian #Bach : The #GoldbergVariations
(Aria mit verschiedenen Veränderungen) BWV 988
Aya Hamada, #harpsichord
https://www.ayahamada.com/
@ayahamadahpd
Recorded Live at Kyoto Concert Hall on February 12, 2022
Harpsichord: German double after Michael Mietke by Jan Kalsbeek (2000)
https://youtu.be/xIc33Ulexao?si=gihegelx_JKBZfR6 (1:32:18)
#jsbach
Buy -
https://ayahamada.bandcamp.com/album/bach-goldberg-variations
Marius Coomans
Harmony Seeker
sgt1372
iotar
Angelika Wienert
earlymusicTO
Luboš Blažek
gmmds