Through a collaborative arranging process, the Catalyst Quartet has created the first fully realized 4-voiced version of the Goldberg Variations for string quartet. The album features this special contribution to the string quartet repertoire along with Glenn Gould's only published composition, his String Quartet Op. 1, completed just before recording his own debut album of the Goldberg Variations in 1955. Having been collectively inspired by Bach’s genius and Glenn Gould, the artist responsible for bringing the Variations into our collective consciousness, we have decided to explore and highlight this three dimensional relationship amongst Bach, Glenn Gould, and the medium of the string quartet.

This project began in a car ride through the rolling hills of California. While on a deep dive through classical music recordings, we came across Glenn Gould’s String Quartet. Inspired by this monumental forty minute soliloquy, we decided that the most fitting programmatic pairing for this work would be Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The only problem being Bach’s Goldberg Variations, originally for keyboard, did not exist for the string quartet.

Over the course of a year and half, we researched, arranged, edited, interpreted, RE-interpreted, and RE-edited the entire 30 Variations and Aria. With our eyes set on recording this work, we went to Aldeburgh, England in January 2014. Under the the auspices of the Britten-Pears Young Artist Programme, we workshopped our arrangement with renowned cellist and Bach interpreter Pieter Wispelwey. After two weeks of intense study, we presented the debut of our new arrangement to a very enthusiastic seaside crowd, who even STOMPED at the end of the performance, at Jubilee Hall. Overall, the project has transformed the way we interpret Bach’s music and deepened our profound respect for the musical impact and integrity of Glenn Gould.