{"id":1856,"date":"2009-09-06T20:17:21","date_gmt":"2009-09-07T00:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fryeblog.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?p=1856"},"modified":"2009-09-06T20:17:21","modified_gmt":"2009-09-07T00:17:21","slug":"frye-on-the-goldberg-variations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/09\/06\/frye-on-the-goldberg-variations\/","title":{"rendered":"Frye on the Goldberg Variations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"aria\"<\/p>\n

The video<\/a> posted Saturday night of Glenn Gould<\/a> performing Bach’s “Aria”\u00a0inspired me to track down some of Frye’s references to the Goldberg Variations<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

From Frye\u2019s diary<\/a> entry of 25 March 1949<\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

[O]ff to the Forum, where I had a most delightful surprise: Lew [Lou Morris] had bought a lot of dusty old music on spec, & in it were two volumes constituting a complete Bischoff Bach<\/a>. I need hardly say how I felt the rest of the day, with the Brother Capriccio, the Goldberg Variations, the Sonatas, the French Overture & the A minor Fugue all falling into my lap at once. I must find out what a fair price on it would be.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From Frye\u2019s Notebook 38, par. 46<\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

In music there\u2019s something profound about the working up of a dramatic narrative structure, rising to an analytic climax in the slow movement, & then a finale that gives the initial impression of comic anticlimax. Mozart\u2019s G m quintet [String Quintet in G minor<\/a> (1787), op. 516]. In Beethoven\u2019s 4th piano concerto <\/a>[G minor, op. 58] the tetralogy ending in satyr-play structure is clearer. The reason for it in music is easier to see in the classic variation form, where the dramatic climax is usually penultimate & the very last one a \u2018let-down\u2019 (Goldberg & Diabelli<\/a>). The variation form is not only cyclic but explicitly circumferential, & has to deny narrative advance. (Northrop Frye\u2019s Notebooks for \u201cAnatomy of Criticism<\/a>\u201d<\/em> 144)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From Frye\u2019s Notebook 31, par. 36<\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

The numbers from 28 to 34 are the chief sparagmos<\/a> numbers. 28 & 29 are lunar & Chaucerian, & V [A Vision<\/a>] is a kind of lunatic (in the strict sense) Chaucerian (see ref. to Chaucer<\/a> above [par. 29]) arrangement of what Jung<\/a> would call psychological types. 30 & 31 are solar & recall the sons of Egypt [Blake\u2019s Book of Urizen<\/a>, pl. 28, ll. 8\u201310]. 32 & 33 bring us to the points of the compass & the recurrent Goldberg\u2013Diabelli variation form (counting the theme in G) in music. (Northrop Frye\u2019s Notebooks on Romance<\/em> <\/a>102)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From Frye\u2019s \u201cWallace Stevens and the Variation Form<\/a>\u201d:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The long meditative theoretical poems written in a blank tercet form, Notes toward a Supreme Fiction<\/a>, The Auroras of Autumn<\/a>, An Ordinary Evening in New Haven<\/a>, The Pure Good of Theory<\/a>, are all divided into sections of the same length. An Ordinary Evening has thirty-one sections of six tercets each; the Supreme Fiction, three parts of ten sections each, thirty sections in all, each of seven tercets; and similarly with the others. This curious formal symmetry, which cannot be an accident, also reminds us of the classical variation form in which each variation has the same periodic structure and harmonic sequence. Even the numbers that often turn up remind us of the thirty Goldberg variations, the thirty-three Diabelli waltz variations, and so on. (Spiritus Mundi<\/em> <\/a>276)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The video posted Saturday night of Glenn Gould performing Bach’s “Aria”\u00a0inspired me to track down some of Frye’s references to the Goldberg Variations. From Frye\u2019s diary entry of 25 March 1949: [O]ff to the Forum, where I had a most delightful surprise: Lew [Lou Morris] had bought a lot of dusty old music on spec, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,17,102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bob-denham","category-call-for-papers","category-music"],"yoast_head":"\nFrye on the Goldberg Variations - The Educated Imagination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/2009\/09\/06\/frye-on-the-goldberg-variations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Frye on the Goldberg Variations - The Educated Imagination\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The video posted Saturday night of Glenn Gould performing Bach’s “Aria”\u00a0inspired me to track down some of Frye’s references to the Goldberg Variations. 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