# Can Glenn Gould be saved ...



## rarevinyllibrary

Can* Glenn Gould* be saved beyond all his idiosyncracies ?With the passing of time , one can stand back and decide more than 30 years after his death.


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## moody

rarevinyllibrary said:


> Can* Glenn Gould* be saved beyond all his idiosyncracies ?With the passing of time , one can stand back and decide more than 30 years after his death.


Why,do his recordings sound different after 30 years ?


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## rarevinyllibrary

Yes indeed.As you cannot listen to musicians from beginning of 20th century without noticing technical imperfections and old fashioned style (vocal ,instrumental).Baroque and classical music on period instruments trend has made people dislike the classic opulent interpretations of the past ,often considered obsolete to the 21th century ears !(BACH )


moody said:


> Why,do his recordings sound different after 30 years ?


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## Guest

rarevinyllibrary said:


> Yes indeed.As you cannot listen to musicians from beginning of 20th century without noticing technical imperfections and old fashioned style (vocal ,instrumental).Baroque and classical music on period instruments trend has made people dislike the classic opulent interpretations of the past ,often considered obsolete to the 21th century ears !(BACH )


I don't think I can agree with this. Yes, there are new trends, and recording style and quality has changed, but there is still a place for the older recordings. They do not become obsolete, any more than a recent recording becomes obsolete the second a newer recording appears. Newer listeners frequently "discover" these older recordings and find that they enjoy them.

As to Gould, my objections to his recordings has never been about the technical imperfections, or the playing style (although not my favorite) - it has been his vocalizations, which would have been there regardless of his style and the technical capabilities of recording.


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## rarevinyllibrary

i certainly do not reject older recordings as i own 30.000 + LPs and shellacs .I listen to Cds reluctantly to stay in touch with new recordings and artists.On the contrary , my aim is to draw attention on musical heritage from the past to new listeners focusing on remarquable records in the classical field .


DrMike said:


> I don't think I can agree with this. Yes, there are new trends, and recording style and quality has changed, but there is still a place for the older recordings. They do not become obsolete, any more than a recent recording becomes obsolete the second a newer recording appears. Newer listeners frequently "discover" these older recordings and find that they enjoy them.
> 
> As to Gould, my objections to his recordings has never been about the technical imperfections, or the playing style (although not my favorite) - it has been his vocalizations, which would have been there regardless of his style and the technical capabilities of recording.


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## moody

rarevinyllibrary said:


> Yes indeed.As you cannot listen to musicians from beginning of 20th century without noticing technical imperfections and old fashioned style (vocal ,instrumental).Baroque and classical music on period instruments trend has made people dislike the classic opulent interpretations of the past ,often considered obsolete to the 21th century ears !(BACH )


I'm certainly not in agreement with this,my objection to Gould is the complete waywardness in his performances.
As for your other points,if you wan't to listen to Beethoven's concertii on period instruments good for you. It is pretty obvious that he was writing for something bigger in the scope of the works.
Which instrumentalists from the eary 20th century are you referring to I wonder,Kreisler ,Petri,Rachmaninoff,? not many technical imperfections there.


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## ptr

I'm not sure I understand, isn't Ole' Glenn at best a pile compost that could care less about being saved?

/ptr


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## PetrB

rarevinyllibrary said:


> Can* Glenn Gould* be saved beyond all his idiosyncracies ?With the passing of time , one can stand back and decide more than 30 years after his death.


You could ask the same (to me supercilious) question of Rosalyn Tureck, or Wanda Landowska's performances of Bach.

Certainly, some of the older takes are quite tinged with romanticism, and are to modern ears a bit weird, if not downright funny. Landowska's Bach, ultimately musical, was thought at the time to be very much period style correct, which is now not even a question that they are not... but I've noticed something, via a comically bad amateur performance on Youtube of the Kalkbrenner concert etudes -- or some similar repertoire --_ even moderately strong music comes across in relatively bad performances._ I.e. even mauled, or not historically correct, the music makes itself clear as to its fundamental character -- though a bad performance is still not excusable, one need not worry about Bach, for instance.

Now, with that in mind, older performances of Bach are not "bad" while clearly not being within the contemporary parameters of what is thought of "as Bach should be played."

Your question is already answered, though, by the fact the world still flocks to Arthur Rubinstein's recordings of Chopin, Chopin being another whose music is now "played more historically correct" than Rubinstein ever did, his Chopin performances loaded for bear with later romantic era affectations -- a truly great and poetic pianist, _those Rubinstein recordings, still beloved, are now also the poster boy for how not to play Chopin._

Similarly, people consume Bach in a variety of performances from a variety of eras, each with the "take" of the time and the performer.

The current taste for performances by Schiff and Hewitt, both very popular, seem to me to have "_no balls_." I think them far overly precious, and not, I think, at all "what Bach intended:" I think Gould (his idiosyncratic tics included) came far closer to the real thing


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## rarevinyllibrary

Thibaud , Elman .KREISLER is a style in himself!
this period instrument trend was launched when sales dropped drastically and they needed a new product to bounce back. 'successfully.


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## PetrB

rarevinyllibrary said:


> Thibaud , Elman .KREISLER is a style in himself!
> this period instrument trend was launched when sales dropped drastically and they needed a new product to bounce back. 'successfully.


That is one way of looking at it, though it is completely incorrect and sounds like a total fiction


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## rarevinyllibrary

Who knows ? most works have been discovered/recorded and classical is only 5/6 percent of market sales 
have you ever listened to BRUCKNER on "period instruments "(HERREWHEGE) ?


PetrB said:


> That is one way of looking at it, though it is completely incorrect and sounds like a total fiction


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## Ukko

It seems to me obvious that our "junior" member _rarevinyllibrary_ is an agitator, sort of a geezer version of _COAG_.

Please continue your heroic work, sir.


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## PetrB

rarevinyllibrary said:


> Who knows ? most works have been discovered/recorded and classical is only 5/6 percent of market sales
> have you ever listened to BRUCKNER on "period instruments "(HERREWHEGE) ?


Musicology came to the fore in the 1960's. and with it, some of the first widely circulated period instrument performances in some form of style considered more correct for the period.

Contemporary audiences, whether they could articulate it or not, were more than beginning to sense something very "off" about the performance delivery of earlier repertoire, mainly Baroque and classical (I'm sure there is something more inflated and ridiculous than a Karajan led performance of a Mozart or Beethoven Symphony, but that is the first that came to mind.)

For many a listener, those newer performances, on period instruments and closer to being in style (or at least based on the best researched and educated guesses) were what made that earlier music sound alive again.

You make it sound like a calculated market researched then funded project to simply boost record sales 

And no, why would I want to listen to Bruckner in any format when I cannot abide Bruckner? There is one composer where I know -- period or contemporary instruments -- his music is just not to my taste.


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## rarevinyllibrary

Junior agitator 
no doubt i Will sir 


Hilltroll72 said:


> It seems to me obvious that our "junior" member _rarevinyllibrary_ is an agitator, sort of a geezer version of _COAG_.
> 
> Please continue your heroic work, sir.


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## PetrB

and yet another very current controversy, Simone Dinnerstein, it seems, has dispensed with all musicological evidence, trends, and says, "Just listen to what the music tells you."

Her performance of the aria from the Goldberg Variations:


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## rarevinyllibrary

CHOPINESQUE but interesting .
thank you PetrB


PetrB said:


> and yet another very current controversy, Simone Dinnerstein, it seems, has dispensed with all musicological evidence, trends, and says, "Just listen to what the music tells you."
> 
> Her performance of the aria from the Goldberg Variations:


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## PetrB

rarevinyllibrary said:


> CHOPINESQUE but interesting .
> thank you PetrB


Chopin never played it that way, to be sure, and he used Bach as a daily warm-up, often assigned it to his pupils, and told them to practice both Bach and Chopin's own works in tempo and without pedal


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## rarevinyllibrary

Most of golden era recordings on piano are plagued with pedal in BACH (I will not quote any names ....)


PetrB said:


> Chopin never played it that way, to be sure, and he used Bach as a daily warm-up, often assigned it to his pupils, and told them to practice both Bach and Chopin's own works in tempo and without pedal


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## rarevinyllibrary

Mexican mushrooms , a path for BACH will be my new thread....


PetrB said:


> Chopin never played it that way, to be sure, and he used Bach as a daily warm-up, often assigned it to his pupils, and told them to practice both Bach and Chopin's own works in tempo and without pedal


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## DavidA

Gould was an outstanding pianist. He introduced me to Bach on the piano. Of course, one has to say which Gould turned up. He appeared to be able to do what he wished with the music - and he did. I have four versions of the Goldberg variations and they are all different. But there were times when Gould was just simply perverse - as in some of his Mozart sonatas. Just why he wanted to record them is beyond me as they do nothing for his reputation as a great pianist.


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## moody

Surely this can't be Bellbottom again ???!!!!


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## Ukko

moody said:


> Surely this can't be Bellbottom again ???!!!!


Nah. Too articulate, too knowledgeable.


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## hreichgott

Listening to different recordings of the same pieces by very different pianists is valuable. 

Unlike many here, I actually LIKE different recordings by very different pianists.

I don't often listen to Gould for pleasure, but when I'm learning a piece, I find it very useful to listen to Gould and to, well, anyone else playing the same piece. I usually never make the same choices Gould does -- partly because he pays a purposely small amount of attention to the composer's intent -- but he always makes me pay attention to things in the music that I wouldn't have noticed in the other recordings.

Gould is probably very useful for the ears of anyone who wants to understand a piece better.


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## KenOC

DavidA said:


> But there were times when Gould was just simply perverse - as in some of his Mozart sonatas. Just why he wanted to record them is beyond me as they do nothing for his reputation as a great pianist.


Glenn Gould being interviewed on Mozart:

B.M.: And you always disliked them (the Mozart sonatas)?

G.G.: What I felt at that time, I think, was dismay. I simply couldn't
understand how my teachers, and other presumably sane adults of my
acquaintance, could count these pieces among the great musical treasures of
Western man. The actual process of playing them, on the other hand, was
always very enjoyable. I had a lot of fun running my fingers up and down
the keys, exploiting all those scales and arpeggios. After all, they offer
the same sort of tactile pleasure as -- Saint-Saens, let's say.

B.M.: I think I should ignore that.

G.G.: Oh, please don't. I admire Saint-Saens, especially when he's not
writing for the piano.


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## Garlic

He also recorded the only listenable Chopin 













...


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## Garlic

rarevinyllibrary said:


> Mexican mushrooms , a path for BACH will be my new thread....


Oooh I'm looking forward to that one


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## kv466

Just wth is this thread about anyway?!!!! Saved? From what?

It is he who refuses to recognize this man that needs saving. 

With Glenn you either get it which is what I like to consider the 'proper' mental state or you don't in which case, well...you just don't. 

So many people, especially musicians with low expectations of themselves, find it so hard to appreciate and recognize true greatness. Sad but true. 

Something I will never understand...


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## Ukko

kv466 said:


> [...]
> So many people, especially musicians with low expectations of themselves, find it so hard to appreciate and recognize true greatness. Sad but true. So something I will never understand...


Hah. For some reason I had to read that paragraph a couple times, to avoid replacing 'low expectations' with 'high opinions'. Both true I suppose, but with 'high opinions' in there it is easy to understand.

[Then I had to read _my_ paragraph a few times, to make sure it didn't convey an insult. Maybe I haven't woke up yet.]


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## Itullian

Lets face it, Gould is weird. You can like him or not , but he's out there.
Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't.


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## DavidA

Itullian said:


> Lets face it, Gould is weird. You can like him or not , but he's out there.
> Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't.


One of the biographies of GG is called 'Wondrous Strange'

Yes!


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## Oreb

rarevinyllibrary said:


> Can* Glenn Gould* be saved beyond all his idiosyncracies ?With the passing of time , one can stand back and decide more than 30 years after his death.


 No, because despite the passage of time he still doesn't shut the f*** up while playing. A deal-breaker if ever there was one


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## Forte

Oreb said:


> No, because despite the passage of time he still doesn't shut the f*** up while playing. A deal-breaker if ever there was one


I love Glenn Gould's humming. He's trying to enjoy himself more than notes from the keyboard can offer. There's a certain pleasure in listening to a human being completely swallowed up by that kind of thing. People say it's mad, or eccentric, but I say they don't know what they're talking about because all geniuses at heart are mad


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## Itullian

Forte said:


> I love Glenn Gould's humming. He's trying to enjoy himself more than notes from the keyboard can offer. There's a certain pleasure in listening to a human being completely swallowed up by that kind of thing. People say it's mad, or eccentric, but I say they don't know what they're talking about because all geniuses at heart are mad


Narcissistic, I believe, to hum that loud.


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## Oreb

Forte said:


> I love Glenn Gould's humming. He's trying to enjoy himself more than notes from the keyboard can offer. There's a certain pleasure in listening to a human being completely swallowed up by that kind of thing. People say it's mad, or eccentric, but I say they don't know what they're talking about because all geniuses at heart are mad


 I can cope with Keith Jarrett doing it in his rapture-improvisations (although even there it's a bit annoying), but for me it's out of place in the classical setting. Not that I think passion is out of place in classical music - far from it - but I think it adds a layer of 'notes' that don't belong there.


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## Forte

Itullian said:


> Narcissistic, I believe, to hum that loud.


There are _very_ few recordings where his humming has more volume than about _piano_, and most of them have that bit somewhat muted by the sound engineer(s).



Oreb said:


> I can cope with Keith Jarrett doing it in his rapture-improvisations (although even there it's a bit annoying), but for me it's out of place in the classical setting. Not that I think passion is out of place in classical music - far from it - but I think it adds a layer of 'notes' that don't belong there.


I don't know, I just don't find it annoying at all. The greatness of his Bach makes his humming completely obsolete for me, should I wish not to pay attention to it. I have no idea why he would have needed to care about what listeners thought of his humming, and since he obviously enjoyed playing his music while doing that, I completely accept it. Many, many people find his Bach recordings to be the best, including the greatest of performers, and I think the humming is just an idiosyncratic detail that detracts nothing.


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## Oreb

Forte said:


> There are _very_ I have no idea why he would have needed to care about what listeners thought of his humming, and since he obviously enjoyed playing his music while doing that, I completely accept it.


 I respect and envy the pleasure you get from his work, but I do disagree with the above. I think all performers should care about the experience of their listeners. Performances always include the audience. If not, why perform?


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## Vaneyes

Oreb said:


> I respect and envy the pleasure you get from his work, but I do disagree with the above. I think all performers should care about the experience of their listeners. Performances always include the audience. If not, why perform?


I thought we were still in the politically-correct age. Please, please, find some compassion to tolerate a person's bodily functions, though they might not resemble yours. :lol:


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## KenOC

Oreb said:


> I respect and envy the pleasure you get from his work, but I do disagree with the above. I think all performers should care about the experience of their listeners. Performances always include the audience. If not, why perform?


By all evidence, GG pleased his audience pretty well. After lo these many years, his recordings (humming and all) are still in print, still popular, and never discounted.


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## DavidA

KenOC said:


> By all evidence, GG pleased his audience pretty well. After lo these many years, his recordings (humming and all) are still in print, still popular, and never discounted.


You're wrong about the last bit, Ken. GG's recordings are now a lot cheaper than they were. But still selling well.


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## Pip

I don't believe that GG needs saving by anyone. He is still doing fine.


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## niv

Oreb said:


> I respect and envy the pleasure you get from his work, but I do disagree with the above. I think all performers should care about the experience of their listeners. Performances always include the audience. If not, why perform?


*Which* audience? I think many musicians just try to do what pleases them, and the audience will like the work as long as their tastes are more or less aligned with the musician's taste. And what's so wrong with that?


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## rarevinyllibrary

Ahem , i partly disagree with that .Renowned pianist had the courage to recognize that their playing was often adapted to their current audience or performance halls :audiences do not align with the musicians taste ,its more likely to be the other way round . 


niv said:


> *Which* audience? I think many musicians just try to do what pleases them, and the audience will like the work as long as their tastes are more or less aligned with the musician's taste. And what's so wrong with that?


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## niv

rarevinyllibrary said:


> Ahem , i partly disagree with that .Renowned pianist had the courage to recognize that their playing was often adapted to their current audience or performance halls :audiences do not align with the musicians taste ,its more likely to be the other way round .


I didn't say it was the case for all musicians. I'm saying it is the case for many. Notice I said many, I'm not claiming majority nor completeness.


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## kv466

DavidA said:


> You're wrong about the last bit, Ken. GG's recordings are now a lot cheaper than they were. But still selling well.


Even the very best is found at a reduced rate every once in a while. Personally, I don't know where you get this. The Sony Edition is priced as it always was and certain out of print releases are through the roof! Either way, I know of no other pianist who has had the same exact recordings released in so many different ways; certainly, none more deserving.


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## DavidA

kv466 said:


> Even the very best is found at a reduced rate every once in a while. Personally, I don't know where you get this. The Sony Edition is priced as it always was and certain out of print releases are through the roof! Either way, I know of no other pianist who has had the same exact recordings released in so many different ways; certainly, none more deserving.


Most recordings by GG are now at bargain or mid price on Amazon.

Can I recommend the DVD - 'the Genius Within' which is most illuminating.


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## ClassicalGuitarist

Glenn Gould was the greatest and I would rather listen to the great musicians of the past than today's new flashy players who don't express any feeling when they play. Give me Gould, Richter, Rubinstein, Horowitz, and Rachmaninov any day.


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## hoodjem

rarevinyllibrary said:


> Can* Glenn Gould* be saved beyond all his idiosyncracies ?With the passing of time , one can stand back and decide more than 30 years after his death.


Simply put: no.


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## Barbebleu

Even more simply put, yes!


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## Flamme

Just wacthed a cool movie to Glenn Goulds music...


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## hoodjem

You might watch _I, Robot_.

That's what Gould's performances of JS Bach sound like to me.


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## Zauberfloete

I admire his enthusiasm, passion and of course his talent. 

But do I enjoy listening to his performances? Nope. It's like listening to a stand-up comedian who laughs incessantly at his own jokes. 

Some listeners may find it enthusing and infectious but to me it is just distracting.


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## Juliano66

Gould needs no saving. His place as the most interesting, talented and inspired pianist of the mid twentieth century is secure.


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