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·Prelude

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Commission Music

·Guide to costs

ORIGINALLY PLANNED AS AN ANNIVERSARY GIFT, THE NEW GOLDBERG VARIATIONS BECAME A MEMORIAL THAT CELEBRATED THE LIFE OF A BELOVED HUSBAND WITH A PASSION FOR MUSIC.

When Judy Goldberg of Newton, Massachusetts met Robert, her husband-to-be, on a blind date, he arranged for them to attend the opera-as ushers.

From the beginning, Robert, a computer scientist, and Judy, who plays the piano, shared a passion for music. For their wedding, they asked a friend, pianist Robert Levin, to perform a few of Bach's Goldberg Variations. But the officiating rabbi was so delayed, that the assembled wedding guests heard all of the variations twice.

Robert and Judy Goldberg

Throughout their close and happy marriage and the raising of four children, music remained at the center of Robert and Judy's life. For their 25th wedding anniversary, they decided to commission a new set of Goldberg Variations. But Robert became ill with cancer and died before the project could be realized.

Judy Goldberg told the moving story of how this new work became a celebration of Robert's spirit and love of music…

Approaching our 25th wedding anniversary, we were talking about how blessed we were to find one another. Robert suggested we commission some new Goldberg variations.

I had done some work with the musical organization Young Audiences, and we had become friends with Yo-Yo Ma and his wife Jill Horner. Our first step was to ask them how to go about it. Yo-Yo said we should involve people we cared about.

Without a second's hesitation, and even though the original variations were written for keyboard, we immediately said we care about you, will you be involved? To our delight he agreed.

Another connection was made through one of Robert's partners, whose first cousin is the composer John Corigliano. And when we called him he loved the idea, but he thought it was a little presumptuous for one composer to walk in Bach's footsteps. So he suggested we have several composers each write a variation and put them together like a collage. It was a generous way of thinking.

Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, and Peter Schickele

Robert and I were on this great celebratory lark planning how we would do it all. It was just then that Robert got sick. He was 48 and had so much energy and zest for life. You never expect cancer to strike. It's the last thing you imagine happening. It was four months from diagnosis to death.

But Yo-Yo kept this commissioning project alive for us. It was the most positive focus of that terrible time for me and I'm sure for Robert too. Yo-Yo would come and bring tapes of various composers for us to listen to and he would talk about the project. In the course of those four months, Robert and I listened to music in the hospital and at home. And together we made a short list of the chosen composers.

The six composers-John Corigliano, Christopher Rouse, Peter Lieberson, Kenneth Frazelle, Peter Schickele, Richard Danielpour -were all so friendly and willing to get involved. They received the project with open arms. After all, commissioning is the affirmation of what they do.

Then after Robert died, I let things go for a while when I was beginning the healing process. Along the way, I went to one of Yo-Yo's concerts. He was playing with Emanuel Ax and when we were introduced, he had heard about the Goldberg project and asked if he could be involved too. That was serendipitous and thrilling.

So the New Goldberg Variations turned out to be a memorial for Robert. But I didn't want it to be sad. I wanted it to be a celebration and we went forward with that feeling.

Each of the six composers wrote five or six minutes of music based on the Goldberg Variations. I was very loose about what that meant. I felt they should be free to do what they wanted, but some of the composers actually wanted more guidelines.

I talked to each of the composers and had conversations with them. I wrote a letter about Robert and our life together. On the business side of things, I hired an attorney to help me deal with the publishers and also to help me make sure I treated them all equally. Everyone was very agreeable.

It helped that I knew people already to open some doors. You need that. Meet The Composer can be a very helpful conduit and liaison for someone who wants to commission. One valuable thing is having the guideline of costs Meet The Composer published. What deters a lot of people from commissioning is that they have a wild idea about how expensive it might be. It's really very doable, like buying a painting or a nice wardrobe.

The New Goldberg Variations premiered in Jordan Hall in Boston in 1999. Seven hundred people came to hear it. Since then, Yo-Yo has played it in Europe and Japan and at Carnegie Hall. The Variations just keep getting performed and I get calls from other instrumentalists telling me they have just played it. It is a gift that keeps giving back.

From the initial stage as a gift of love from my husband to me for our anniversary, it has been a beautiful thing. And I'm very privileged to have been able to do it.

In terms of the memorial aspect, it was the best way to create something eternal. People come and people go. Helping to create this new work of music was a way of beating the system. How wonderful to be able to do that.