After seeing The Goldberg Variations at New York City Ballet last weekend, I was inspired to take down the music from my shelf and stumble my way through them on the home piano. Many of them are quite hard, but a lot of the difficulty comes from all the hand-crossings in about 10 of the more virtuoso variations—which would have been far less taxing on a 2-manual harpsichord. This has led British composer Robin Holloway, for instance, to write his own set of variations on the Goldbergs, and in the early 1900s one hears of renditions on two pianos. The Hans Bischoff edition I have makes occasional efforts to minimize these hand-crossings, but I think a lot more can be done. My question is—before I write out these 10 variations longhand—does anyone know a good modern edition that reduces the hand-crossings so as to make the GV more practicable on a modern piano?
