21 March—As the self-serving Republicans in Washington are going to pains to screw the country and the self-serving Democrats in Hartford are doing their level best to screw the state, let’s take a needed break from politics to celebrate Johann Sebastian Bach’s 341^st birthday. His birthday by the Julian calendar, anyway. [For more on that and more delightful Bach music, go to Bach birthday overload.]

So today we’ll celebrate J.S.’s Julian birthday with two of his Goldberg Variations, numbers 28 and 29, of BWV 988. Contrary to popular belief, Bach didn’t write the variations to honor OSS officer, Supreme Court associate justice, labor secretary, and U.N. ambassador Arthur Goldberg. Rather, the 30 variations were probably first performed in 1741 by a 14-year-old keyboard virtuoso called Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who like so many brilliant musical virtuosos and composers died too young, he just after turning 29.

Bach specifically wrote the Goldberg Variations for “harpsichord with two manuals,” to facilitate complex hand-crossing. And today’s variations are brilliantly played on such an instrument.

So happy birthday, J.S. . . .