Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Goldberg: Variations review
My review of Gabriel Josipovici's novel Goldberg: Variations is in the new edition of The Quarterly Conversation. The issue contains several items of interest, including Garth Risk Hallberg's argument against James Wood's repeated attacks on DeLillo's Underworld; Antoine Wilson on Tom McCarthy's Remainder; and Matthew Cheney on Rick Moody's Right Livelihoods.
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2 comments:
Dear Mr. Crary,
Thank you for drawing my attention to Josipovici. His paragraph on Leverkühn convinced me to order “On Trust.” Perhaps we can discuss that book, or some other, in the near future.
You write: "Immediately the reader thinks of Bach, whose Goldberg Variations were, as legend has it, composed to help cure the insomnia of a rich patron named Goldberg." I believe the variations were written and nicknamed for Count Hermann Carl von Keyserlingk’s court harpsichordist Johann Gottlieb Theophilus Goldberg, a former pupil of Bach’s eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann. The legend as I know it is that Keyserlingk, when suffering from insomnia, asked Goldberg to play the variations.
To thank you for recommending Josipovici, I will send a CD (Rosalyn Tureck, Christiane Jaccottet, or Glenn Gould's 1955 or 1981 recording) if you provide a P. O. box address.
Yours,
J. D. Daniels
J.D. -
I'm pleased to have been able to introduce you to Josipovici--I've become a big admirer--and that you ordered On Trust!
And, of course you're right about the legend about the Variations. I bungled that somehow and never noticed it through several iterations. Sigh. Thanks for pointing it out.
I appreciate the offer of a recording (the only one I have of the ones you mention is the 1955 Gould), though I don't have a P.O. Box. I could give you my house address if you pop me an email at yolacrary@toad.net
Anyway, thanks for the comment.
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