ordinal values
14th Baktun begins
the 1st Canon
and its companion retrograde
the beautiful 13th
triplex
the 14th
16th notes, 6 times
the final soggetto
cryptogrammic loveliness
muse mathematics
embracing starry notes and heavenly calculations
that
in truth
are the mind's time
the poetics of our
passage
here.
listening to stars and streams
http://oregonbachfestival.com/digitalbach/goldberg/
"Discovery of BWV 1087
In 1974 a published copy of the Goldberg Variations, first owned by Bach himself, was discovered in private possession in France. Accompanying the manuscript, in Bach's hand, there was attached a single page with fourteen canons on the first eight notes of the Goldberg ground. The discovery of the hitherto unknown manuscript was immediately hailed as the most important addition of a Bach source in recent decades. Of the fourteen canons, only numbers 11 and 13 had been known before 1974. "
"Signature Number?
It is a coincidence, perhaps, that there are fourteen canons in the Goldberg addendum. But to those who are cognizant of Bach's fascination with the number 14 as the sum of the ordinal values of the letters of his name (B+A+C+H), the number of canons in this cycle is more than coincidental. Bach's last major work, Art of the Fugue contains fourteen Contrapuncti, the last of which is the unfinished quadruple fugue in which the third subject is the BACH motive. If the number of canons can be understood to represent the composer's signature number, we might infer that Bach wished for the cycle of canons to represent, just as the Art of the Fugue represents, the last word on the subject. "
Baktun (14)
Bach tune -14 being the sum of the letters of his name (B+A+C+H = 2+1+3+8)
Baktun (14)
Bach tune -14 being the sum of the letters of his name (B+A+C+H = 2+1+3+8)
