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The "Goldberg" Variations is the last of a series of keyboard music Bach published under the title of Clavierübung, and is often regarded as the most serious and ambitious composition ever written for harpsichord. Based on a single ground bass theme, the variations display not only Bach's exceptional knowledge of diverse styles of music of the day but also his exquisite performing techniques. Being also the largest of all clavier pieces published during the Baroque period, the work soars high above others in terms of its encyclopaedic character. From this, it is often considered that it sums up the entire history of Baroque variation, the Diabelli Variations by Beethoven being the Classical counterpart. However, doomed perhaps by its requirements of virtuoso techniques from a performer, it was not as popularly known as the Well-Tempered Clavier, which was not even published during the composer's lifetime. Nonetheless, the work has long been regarded as the most important set of variations composed in the Baroque era: in 1774 Johann Philipp Kirnberger, one of Bach's pupils, referred to it as "the best variations", while in 1802 Johann Nicolaus Forkel, the author of the first ever biography of J. S. Bach, praised the work as the "model, according to which all variations should be made".