II - The Novel Based on a Particular Piece of Music: J. S. Bach's Goldberg Variations

Summary

This second analysis section focuses on the structure of novels that take J. S. Bach's Goldberg Variations as a model, which bear the official title Aria mit verschiedenen Veränderungen für Cembalo mit 2 Manualen (Aria with various modifications for the 2-manual harpsichord) and were first published in 1741. These novels employ both the macrostructure of the theme-and-variations form for the novel as a whole and various microstructural elements, such as when individual chapters exhibit parallels to individual variations. I also consider the question of what it means for a novel to imitate a specific piece of music rather than a whole genre, as is the case with the jazz novels analyzed in chapters 2–4. This leads to a discussion of the function this piece of music has for the texts and why this particular piece has inspired so many writers. Though other pieces of classical music have also served as a model for novels—as, for instance, most famously in Anthony Burgess's Napoleon Symphony, structured around Beethoven's third symphony (Eroica)—none has had the same resonance as Bach's Goldberg Variations.

In addition to the five novels analyzed in the following chapters, numerous other works in a variety of genres reflect the influence of Bach's piece. Dieter Kühn's radio play Goldberg-Variationen, written in 1972–73 and first broadcast in 1974, is a dialogue between language and music that plays with the concept of the theme and variations as a means of questioning the role of art in a world in which people are being “abused, beaten, tortured, killed” (Kühn, “Nachwort,” 149). Anna Enquist's novel Contrapunt adapts the idea that the variations had been composed as a tribute to Bach's deceased son, who had loved the aria. Her novel relates the story of a pianist who deals with the loss of her daughter by playing these variations. More minor references pervade literature, where the piece may stand in for classical art in general, for a rational ideal of music, or for any number of other associations.