Art and About

The father of classical music: "Encyclopedia Bach-tanica" hits H-Town withGoldberg Variations

Getting to know Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations is like having a profound yet chummy rendezvous with the baroque composer from beyond the grave. He may be long departed (he died in 1750) but his persona will perpetually be revered as one of the triumvirate that phrased the journey of Western classical music, along with Beethoven and Brahms — colloquially referred to as the "Three Bs" by 19th-century German conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow and known as classical music's Holy Trinity.

Bach, the Father, Beethoven, the Son, and Brahms, the Holy Ghost.

And Bach is treated as such by musicians, music pedagogues and musicologists.

It would be impossible to name one work that embodies the composer's spirit. Having to toggle between his glorious Cello Suites, the prodigious Violin Partitas, the ominous Mass in B Minor, the inventive Well-Tempered Clavier, Brandenburg Concerti or the Musical Offering is just sinfully wrong.

But it could be argued that Goldberg Variations — written towards the end of Bach's life and made popular by Canadian pianist Glenn Gould — amalgamates everything Bach learned during his career in a keyboard composition that has become the prime example of the theme and variations genre. It is speculated, though some scholars disagree, that the masterpiece received its name from Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, a harpsichordist and a younger contemporary of Bach's who also may have been the first musician to play the piece.

If you feel slightly relaxed, chilled out, perhaps even somnolent while listening, it's because Goldberg Variations was designed to have that effect.

Count Kaiserling, Russian ambassador to the electoral court of Saxony, had trouble reaching a state of slumber and commissioned Bach to craft something to help him fall asleep. The end result was an aria and a set of 30 variations — grouped as 10 sets of three, consisting of a court dance, a virtuosic toccata and a canon — filled with mathematically complex musical feats that dumbfound students of counterpoint.

We would most likely cry musical blasphemy at the attempt to even consider transcribing a piece like Goldberg Variations for other instruments. But it was customary in the aesthetic of the baroque to substitute colors at the whim of the performers. Often, compositions would not specify instrumentation, as was the case with Bach's Art of the Fugue and Musical Offering. A continuo line in any trio sonata could be played by any number of instruments, as well.

In that spirit, Mercury Baroque is performing the variations in an arrangement by Bernard Labadie (music director of the famed Québécois group, Les Violons du Roy) for baroque string orchestra. Titled "Encyclopedia Bach-tanica," the ensemble's 2011-12 kick-off concert is set for 8 p.m. Saturday at Wortham Theater Center.

So off we went to meet with Mercury Baroque's conductor and viola da gambist, Antoine Plante, and his sidekick, concertmaster and baroque violinist Jonathan Godfrey. Video camera and microphone in-hand, we captured their thoughts and sounds.

Movie Review

Billie Eilish takes fans behind the scenes in immersive 3D tour film

Billie Eilish in Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D

Photo by Henry Hwu/courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Billie Eilish in Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D.

In 2021, at the tender age of 19, singer Billie Eilish was already the subject of a documentary, The World’s a Little Blurry. At that point, she had only released one album, so the film threatened to feel too early for such treatment. The ensuing five years have only made her a bigger star, though, so in many ways that movie now feels prescient for the person on display in the new concert documentary with the unwieldy title of Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D.

Directed by Eilish and blockbuster filmmaker James Cameron, the film takes viewers inside Eilish’s 2024-2025 tour in support of her latest album, 2023’s Hit Me Hard and Soft. Filmed mostly at her series of shows in Manchester, England, the movie is a showcase for Eilish’s music, but it also serves as a smaller exploration of the type of person she is, as well as the impact she has had on her legion of fans.

The draw of the film is the use of Cameron’s beloved 3D technology, which he has employed in each of the three Avatar films. Unlike in those films, where the 3D has the odd effect of making the visuals too realistic for their own good, the technique brings an intimacy to the large-scale show that underscores the unique bond the singer has with her supporters.

Eilish and Cameron go back and forth between performances at the concert to behind-the-scenes sequences, detailing the enormous effort it takes to put on a show like that and how Eilish spends her time getting ready for it. As in The World’s a Little Blurry, this film continues to portray the singer as down-to-Earth, someone who yearns to maintain the connection to her fans that she’s had since she released her first single, “Ocean Eyes,” 10 years ago.

And as the many emotional songs in Eilish’s concert playlist prove, the feeling from the crowd is mutual. While Eilish has multiple bangers like “Bad Guy,” “Therefore I Am,” and the Charli XCX collaboration “Guess,” it’s the sad songs like “Everything I Wanted,” “Happier Than Ever,” and the Oscar-winning Barbie anthem, “What Was I Made For?” that hit the hardest. The depth of feeling emanating from her many sobbing fans singing along to crushing songs cannot be understated.

For audiences of the film, though, it’s the breadth of camera angles and shot choices that make it truly dynamic. There are cameras everywhere, including in the crowd, inside a cube at the center of the stage that rises and descends, following Eilish as she traipses every inch of the long, rectangular stage, and even a small one Eilish uses to bring an extra personal touch to the in-arena screen. Combined, they capture the complete energy of the concert, something that is not always the case in a film of this type.

Eilish has almost as many movies — two — as she does albums — three — which borders on overkill for a singer of her age. But both her music and the movies show her to be a person who knows the responsibility of being a celebrity, someone who understands that her fans are the reason she’s famous at all. Her career may go up or down from here, but it’s clear she’s already made a huge impact on those who love her most.

---

Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft - The Tour Live in 3D opens in theaters on May 8.

Loading...