Editing Goldberg Variations (section)

== Canons on the Goldberg ground, BWV 1087 ==
[[File:Johann Sebastian Bach.jpg|upright|thumb|[[Elias Gottlob Haussmann|Haussmann]]'s portrait of Bach depicts him holding the manuscript to BWV 1076, which is also the thirteenth canon in the Goldberg Canon cycle.]]
When Bach's personal copy of the printed edition of the ''Goldberg Variations'' (see above) was discovered in 1974, it was found to include an appendix in the form of fourteen canons built on the first eight bass notes from the aria. It is speculated that the number 14 refers to the ordinal values of the letters in the composer's name: B(2) + A(1) + C(3) + H(8) = 14.<ref>See chapter 7 of [[Richard Taruskin]] (2009) ''Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: The Oxford History of Western Music''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Or9RybF5lOwC&dq=bach+canons+goldberg+14&pg=PT450 Extract] viewable at Google Books.</ref> Among those canons, the eleventh and the thirteenth are first versions of BWV 1077 and BWV 1076; the latter is included in the famous portrait of Bach painted by [[Elias Gottlob Haussmann]] in 1746.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/fourteencanonsgg.html |title=Fourteen Canons on the First Eight Notes of the Goldberg Ground (BWV 1087) |publisher=Jan.ucc.nau.edu |access-date=2012-08-11}}</ref>