Literary variations on Bach’s Goldberg
“Literary variations on Bach’s Goldberg,” article by W. Wolf in “This paper takes several fictional adaptations of Bach’s Goldberg Variations to explore various modes through which musical form has been adapted in modern literature. Novels by Nancy Huston, Thomas Bernhard, Richard Powers, and Gabriel Josipovici provide four different models for the utilization of a specific musical work as literary theme and structure and thereby exemplify one precise approach to the relationship of music and literature. These adaptations are then located within the larger Bach renaissance of the late twentieth century.”