The Open Goldberg Variations: J.S. Bach’s Masterpiece Free to Download

First pub­lished in 1741, J.S. Bach’s Gold­berg Vari­a­tions is often con­sid­ered the most ambi­tious com­po­si­tion ever writ­ten for harp­si­chord. As this con­ver­sa­tion at NPR notes, the piece begins “with an ini­tial melody, the Aria, fol­lowed by 30 short but bril­liant vari­a­tions built on eight notes that Bach appears to have bor­rowed from Han­del.” It’s an impres­sive exam­ple of musi­cal one-upman­ship — so impres­sive that the demand­ing piece still cap­tures our often divid­ed atten­tion today.

Now, with no fur­ther delay, let me direct your atten­tion to The Open Gold­berg Vari­a­tions, the first Kick­starter-fund­ed, open source record­ing of Bach’s mas­ter­piece, avail­able entire­ly for free. If you click here, you can down­load and share the new­ly-released record­ing by Kimiko Ishiza­ka, per­formed on a Bösendor­fer 290 Impe­r­i­al piano in Berlin. You can do pret­ty much what­ev­er you want with the record­ing because it’s released under a Cre­ative Com­mons Zero license, which auto­mat­i­cal­ly puts things in the pub­lic domain.

You can also stream the Open Gold­berg Vari­a­tions below, and don’t miss this very relat­ed item: How to Down­load the Com­plete Organ Works of J.S. Bach for Free. And then this bonus: Glenn Gould’s Per­for­mance of the Gold­berg Vari­a­tion’s online.