VARIATIONS ON GOLDBERG: Soviet Sleepies

The Goldberg Variations, an extended collection of harpsichord pieces, were written by Johann Sebastian Bach, first published in 1741. These pieces came to be written via Count Hermann Karl von Keyserling (1696-1764), the Russian ambassador to Saxony, who was suffering from Insomnia. Count Keyserling's companion, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, was a harpsichordist working with Bach. The Goldberg variations were written for him to play "to the amateurs for the enjoyment of the mind". But they served even moreso to lull the Russian Ambassador during nights troubled by insomnia.



One of Keyserling's heirs was Hermann Alexander Keyserling (1880-1946), a heridetary Count from Raykull, Estonia. Keyserling lost his Estonian estate during the Bolshevik revolution. He married the granddaughter of the German leader, Chancellor Bismark. A philosopher and author, he was one of the earlier Western thinkers to promote a global culture, founding the "School of Wisdom" in Darmstadt, Germany in 1920, which is still in action under his son and their followers. His brain has been preserved and displayed in a museum in Bern, Switzerland (alongside Einstein's); though eventually his family had his brain returned to his body.

Putting the Soviet to sleep. One has this lulled sensibility here. The village is fairly sleepy, certainly active and productive, but relaxed and unhurried (stores dont typically open until around 10am). Meanwhile the abandoned Soviet buildings sleep like giants strewn across the village. I hear the goldberg variations everywhere - that and the music of Ian and Sylvia Tyson, which emma and I sing incessantly. And both of these musics are being featured in some of the sound pieces I'm putting together for a "memory station" within the old Soviet weigh station not too far from MoKs.