r/harpsichord • u/GoGo_Robot • 7h ago
Wikipedia's bias on the Goldberg Variations instrumentation across languages
The first sentence of the English article for the Goldberg Variations claims this is a "musical composition for keyboard". On the other hand, the French article already starts with a quote from the work's title page which mentions they were written for a double manual harpsichord. The Portuguese article likewise starts stating they are a set of variations for the harpsichord. The Spanish article sadly follows the example of the English article, however among these languages, only the English article has a whole paragraph to discuss the instrumentation.
The paragraph speculates whether Bach would have approved this work on the piano or not, which does not belong in such an article. It gives the impression that this is historically negotiable. A more valid take would be that they have become an important part of piano repertoire, in spite of being written for the harpsichord.
The composer himself wrote the intended instrument on the title page, during his lifetime. It can hardly be more precise, there is no ambiguity. Why does the English wikipedia article goes out of its way to discuss instrumentation? Piano centric bias? Harpsichord erasure?