A frustrating day.  Firstly network problems dog my time working from home.  Then the software I am using to build content crashes and locks me completely out of the system. My colleagues sends a sharp email to the supplier about licence instability but there is nothing to be done until a fix is applied.

I turn my attention to the model railway.  I can at last start on laying the track.  I try positioning the first point but I cannot get it to fit properly.  In the process I break one of my soldered connections. Then I realise that I am working with the wrong section of track!

I then position the controller and work out where the point levers will go. This will be a very tight fit! But that is one of the interesting aspects of the project – using ingenuity to fit in all the components.

Along with the CD of the Goldberg Variations, Harmonia Mundi provide a DVD of Andreas Staier discussing the work.  This provides a fascinating insight into the structure and nature of the piece. Staier points out that the variations are grouped into threes with the middle variation of each group being of a virtuosic nature.

The sheer length and imagination on the Variations was unknown in the Baroque period for a solo keyboard work. Staier also discusses speculation about the origin of the work (technically Book 4 of a set of keyboard exercises!) which considers that Bach wrote it as a way of sticking two fingers to his employers – look what I can play, but you can’t!