Johann Gottlieb Goldberg

Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (before because baptized 14 March 1727 – 13 April 1756), also known as Johann Gollberg or Johann Goltberg, was a German virtuoso harpsichordist, organist, and composer of the late Baroque and early Classical period. He is best known for lending his name, as the probable original performer, to the renowned Goldberg Variations of J.S. Bach.

Goldberg was born to German parents in Danzig (Gdańsk), Royal Prussia, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Sometimes he is indicated as "from Königsberg". On March 1727 he was baptized at St. Mary's Church, Gdańsk. Little is known for certain about his childhood, other than that he was an exceptionally talented performer, attracting the attention of Hermann Karl von Keyserlingk, the Russian ambassador to Saxony, around 1737. Goldberg was reported to have studied with both J.S. Bach and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, J.S. Bach's eldest son, though the periods of study are not known; Goldberg may have studied with J.S. Bach as early as 1737, shortly after Keyserlingk recognized his talent in Danzig, and Goldberg may have studied with W.F. Bach at any time before 1745, since W.F. Bach was in Dresden throughout Keyserlingk's tenure there as ambassador.

The most famous part of Goldberg's life is the portion, probably in 1741, recounted by J.S. Bach's biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, which involved the composition of a set of variations by Bach as a soporific to help the insomniac Count Keyserlingk fall asleep. Keyserlingk's favorite chamber harpsichordist was the 14-year-old Goldberg, whose technical accomplishments were so spectacular that they made it possible for him to perform a work of such extraordinary difficulty. Whether the count actually slept through performances of the piece is not recorded, but he did indicate that Bach's composition was a great favorite of his. According to Forkel, writing in 1802, sixty years after the event:

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