Goldbergvariaties Jubilee Tour

Goldberg Variations Jubilee Tour

“You can understand what you hear, but you cannot explain what you hear.” Jan-Willem Rozenboom tours the country with the Goldberg Variations every ten years.

“You ascend to heaven and feel: this is where I want to stay.”

At the age of fifteen, he was captivated by the Goldberg Variations by Johann Sebastian Bach. In the 2014/2015 season, he toured the Netherlands with this masterpiece for the first time. Even then, he knew: “I am going to do this again in ten years, in twenty years, and in thirty years.” This coming season, pianist Jan-Willem Rozenboom will tour Dutch concert halls for the second time in his career with the Goldberg Variations, which has since become his life’s work.

The series kicks off on Sunday, October 13, at the Festival van Zeeuwsch-Vlaanderen in the Grote Kerk in Groede. This will be followed by concerts in Tilburg, Leeuwarden, and The Hague, among others. The performances begin with a lecture, during which the Tilburg pianist makes no effort to suppress his deep love and admiration for Bach and his Goldberg Variations.

“Great works of art often conceal a magnificent construction, and that applies to this absolute pinnacle of piano literature as well,” says the pianist. “By studying that structure, you can understand what you hear, but you will never be able to explain it. How can a composer create a dramatic arc in a work that lasts eighty minutes? Take, for example, that divine melody of the Aria. We hear it at the beginning and at the end of the cycle. The notes are exactly the same, but they sound so different. Bach takes you to the deepest valleys and the highest mountains. Sometimes you even ascend to heaven, and then you feel: this is where I want to stay. When I have played the final note, I always think: I wouldn’t mind at all having to leave the earthly realm right now.”

Peace Bach provides virtually no instructions for the 150,000 notes that make up the work. “You have to continuously make your own choices regarding tempo, dynamics, and articulation. That makes it interesting. Bach offers a lot of freedom, but that also feels like a responsibility. My interpretation has changed over the past ten years. On the one hand, I can now zoom in more on specific details; on the other, I am also able to take a step back to oversee the whole. Virtuosic variations that I used to play primarily in a ‘flow,’ such as number 26, I now play with more cadence. Ten years ago, that virtuosity was mainly an end in itself; nowadays, I can place it much better in the service of the music. I also experience more inner calm to take time for trills and ornamentations. I have gained the most ground not just by studying hard, but precisely by playing it live for an audience. Every time I play the Goldberg Variations in its entirety on stage, the work becomes a little more my own.”