The viola is the instrument of the middle, it often connects upper and lower voice almost unnoticed. Often one is almost jealous of the melodious preluding of the upper voice or the determining lower voice. When Esko Laine came up with the idea of playing Bach's Goldberg Variations in the instrumentation, viola, cello and double bass, I was skeptical at first: a string trio without a really brilliant treble? His idea was to transpose the string trio arrangement by Dmitry Sitkovetsky a fifth lower, because then one would not have to change the voice distribution (which is actually given by Bach). After a first rehearsal with the Aria and a few variations we were thrilled: what a sound! For the viola and the double bass it was a real challenge - to play quasi a violin and cello part on our instruments. Not everything was possible and so I had to edit almost half of the variations differently. The result is a new arrangement and illumination of Bach's great masterpiece, which - I think - is a real enrichment of the chamber music literature.