GG:G'berg quodlibet

[Mary Jo Watts <mwatts@rci.rutgers.edu>]

I picked up a couple of LPs in Philadelphia over the weekend.  One of them
was Rosalyn Tureck's 1979 Goldbergs/Aria and 10 Variations in the
Italian Style on harpsichord. I wonder if GG knew the
recording-- I bet he did as there are certain moments that sound
very much like the '82 Goldbergs. Anyway, here's an excerpt from the liner
notes about the Goldberg quodlibet by Tureck, also a well-known as a
Bach scholar:

		...The dities represented in the quodlibet are German
	folk songs: "I have not been with you for so long" and "Cabbage and
	turnips have driven me away." ...Quodlibet in its literal meaning 
	signifies "that" (quod) "which pleases" (libet), thus
	representing something which is amusing. "Kraut"
	and "ru"ben" have been translated as various vegetables by
	different translators. The most apparent meaning here for "kraut" is
	cabbage, and "ru"ben" may be translated as either turnip, beet or
	carrot. Essentially "ru"ben" represents a root vegetable that develops
	above ground, and "ru"ben" develops below. "Kraut" and "ru"ben" have
	been interpreted separately according to their simple literal
	vegetable identification. [Ground, in this case, signifying
	the ground bass which is the foundation for the variations on the
	aria] However, a German idiomatic expression, "durcheinander
	wie Kraut an Ru"ben" signifies "in complete confusion,"
	or higgledy-piggledy, or "in a mess." This meaning may indeed be
	Bach's own ironic teasing about what, in fact, drove the singer
	away...Bach is having a hearty laugh at the profound complexities of
	all that has been created between the Aria and Quodlibet. The
	reference to "I have not been with you for so long" applies to the
	distance between the Aria and Variation 30, which is placed outside
	the triple sets of variations-- numbering 1 through 29 only. The
	reference also presages the immediate return of the Aria..."
	(Tureck, liner notes) 

{My apologies re: the missing umlauts-- it's my private e-mail
situation and not, I believe, the f_minor default settings that make
my use of extended character sets impossibly difficult to manage...}

I thought RT's literary analysis was amusing and convincing.  

-Mary Jo,
mwatts@rci.rutgers.edu