"Clavier exercise consisting of an ARIA with various variations for the clavichord with 2 manuals. For the enjoyment of lovers, composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, Royal Pohl. and Electoral Saxon Court Composer, Kapellmeister and Directore Chori Musici in Leipzig" is written on the title page of the only large variation work from the pen of the most famous Thomaskantor, published in Nuremberg in 1741. In Johann Nikolaus Forkel's Bach biography from 1802, there is the anecdote that earned the work the name "Goldberg Variations", which is still popular today:

"The Count (Hermann Carl von Keyserlingk) once said to Bach that he would like to have some piano pieces for his (house musician Johann Gottlieb) Goldberg that were so gentle and cheerful in character that they could cheer him up a little during his sleepless nights. Bach believed that the best way to fulfill this wish was through variations, which he had previously considered a thankless task because of the constant basic harmony. But just as all of his works were already models of art by this time, these variations also became so under his hand. He also only produced one model of this kind.

The Count subsequently called them his variations. He could not get enough of listening to them, and for a long time, when sleepless nights came, he would say: Dear Goldberg, play me one of my variations."

Mechthild Winter, an early music specialist from the Bach city of Leipzig, plays this great variation work with expert mastery on her second solo CD. You can hear a replica of a Ruckers harpsichord built in 1624 and expanded in 1720.