Bach's Goldberg Variations
Soul Music
BBC
4.7 • 831 Ratings
🗓️ 23 March 2010
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bach wrote his Goldberg Variations for harpsichord in the 1740s, but today it's performed by pianists all over the world.
People describe the place these pieces have in their lives.
This includes:
* A neuroscientist from New York * Pianist Angela Hewitt * A father driving his family through the night in the Australian Outback * A woman from Oregon whose life was transformed, perhaps even saved, by this music.
Series exploring famous pieces of music and their emotional appeal.
Producer: Sarah Conkey
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2010.
Transcript
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| 0:47.1 | My name is Angela Hewitt, and I'm a classical concert pianist and play the piano all over the world. |
| 0:55.2 | Many of the comments that I get after a performance or from people who listen to my CD and written me are very moving. I mean, I think I had one person right to say that he was working, actually, |
| 1:03.1 | I think, for CBC Radio in Canada and had lost his job and cuts, and he just couldn't listen to music |
| 1:09.0 | for years and years and years. It just, he just couldn't. |
| 1:12.3 | And then he heard the Goldberg of my recording and it just, you know, he changed and he was able then to listen to music again. |
| 1:21.3 | I've had people writing who've been waiting for their babies in delivery rooms and the baby hasn't been coming. |
| 1:27.1 | And so they put on |
| 1:27.9 | the culver variations and the babies finally come. And it's, yeah, it really has a big impact on |
... |
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