# I finally figured out how to describe Glen Gould's playing of Bach.



## LAS (Dec 12, 2014)

For a long time I've cast about for a way to describe Glen Gould's playing of Bach, particularly when he ratchets down the tempo (note second Goldberg Variations).

The phrase is "respect for the music." The music just shines. You're not listening to Glen Gould, you're listening to Bach.

Do you agree? What are your ways to describe his playing?

tia
las


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Can't agree there, I'd describe Gould's playing as idiosyncratic. Not to say it's not good.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

LAS said:


> You're not listening to Glen Gould, you're listening to Bach.


That's funny; I feel the exact opposite. When he plays Bach, I'm listening to Glenn Gould playing Bach. (With the humming, I'm literally listening to Glenn Gould). But I also think Gould playing Bach is a magnificent artistic achievement.


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## Symphonic (Apr 27, 2015)

I have similar thoughts.

However, I would say "respect for the notes" more closely describes Glenn Gould's style.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

More than his interpretations of most of the music he played, I just love his technique and the sound he produced on the piano. It's so crip, it reminds me of the late jazz great pianist Oscar Peterson, another hero.


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## Parley (May 29, 2021)

Gould's Bach is eccentric but then Bach gave no specific instructions how his keyboard music should be played. Gould had a phenomenal technique to be able to play it many different ways. Although his iconoclasm sometimes got the better of him he certainly introduced countless people to Bach.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Years ago, some syndicated radio announcer described Gould's Bach as containing "more information" than other people's. I don't know quite what that means, but it sounds good.


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## LAS (Dec 12, 2014)

Thanks for that. I like it.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I would describe Gould's Bach playing as staccato stream of consciousness sans pedal. He seemed to value tempo and clarity above all except the occasional humming. It's what made his playing famous.


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## Eclectic Al (Apr 23, 2020)

Self-indulgent and generally irritating. An insult to Bach.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Precision and giving equal weight to voices.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Bulldog said:


> *Precision and giving equal weight to voices*.


MIDI versions share these characteristics in abundance:

http://www.kunstderfuge.com/bach/wtk1.htm


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## LAS (Dec 12, 2014)

I kept thing about this, and I think it's very apt. Possibly true. Much appreciated.

LAS


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## LAS (Dec 12, 2014)

Symphonic said:


> I have similar thoughts.
> 
> However, I would say "respect for the notes" more closely describes Glenn Gould's style.


I kept thing about this, and I think it's very apt. Possibly true. Much appreciated.

LAS


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

He knows how to make a Steinway sound like a pre-1750s hammerklavier, but I could do without the humming.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I can add only that when I listen to Glenn Gould's music I find myself humming along with him. I don't say this is a bad thing.


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

The concept of a typewriter comes to my mind.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Most people would actually consider Gould to be highly idiosyncratic and one of the least respectful pianists in regards to the great composers.

He loved Bach, sure-but consider his remarks about Mozart:






Or his recording of the Appassionata, which he considered to be an awful work:






One commentator notes that "it is as if Glenn is trying to prove that the sonata isn't beautiful, but fails."

Ol' Glenn did as he pleased, respect be damned. Sometimes it was genius and sometimes it was self-indulgence.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

chu42 said:


> Most people would actually consider Gould to be highly idiosyncratic and one of the least respectful pianists in regards to the great composers.
> 
> He loved Bach, sure-but consider his remarks about Mozart:
> 
> ...


I don't know why experienced listeners are so negative about his interpretations. The Mozart thing was a joke with a valid point, many valid points.

I treasure my recording of his Appassionata. Would Beethoven play it the same way twice? 'Not likely. It's large and it should be interpreted. Its pedestrian ideas demand it. I've thought that that was LvB's point he was making with such material. He said, here, do something with this, it's not just arpeggios.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

LAS said:


> For a long time I've cast about for a way to describe Glen Gould's playing of Bach, particularly when he ratchets down the tempo (note second Goldberg Variations).
> 
> The phrase is "respect for the music." The music just shines. You're not listening to Glen Gould, you're listening to Bach.
> 
> ...


That describes Tureck and Schiff but not Gould imo.

The phrase that comes to my mind regarding Gould is "look how different I am". Sometimes it's too self-conscious and for its own sake.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Glenn Gould was a genius with a pianistic technique equal to his genius. His performances of a composer's works are a pianist's version of re-orchestrations—like a Stokowski orchestration of a Bach fugue. Accept him on those terms, and nobody before or since has played Bach with the same contrapuntal clarity. He utterly changed Bach performance. I often wonder what Bach would have thought. Setting aside the piano, I suspect he would not have liked Gould's performances. But. On the other hand. I suspect Bach would have been drawn to and would have recognized Gould's musical genius and ability. And I think he really would have been captivated by Gould's ability to delineate the contrapuntal voices in his keyboard music. I'm assuming that Bach respected musical ability and skill before all else. I could be wrong. Just speculating.

As for Mozart, he would have been horrified by Gould. Full stop. I do think some part of him would have been captivated by Gould's skill, but I shudder to think of what he would have written to his father and/or sister.

Beethoven, I suspect, might have been more open to Gould's interpretations. Gould's ability to play his sonatas without errors would have impressed him, I think, but I don't think he would have liked Gould's fussy articulation of interior voices. He wouldn't have liked Gould's tempos. Probably.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

Parley said:


> Gould's Bach is eccentric but then Bach gave no specific instructions how his keyboard music should be played. Gould had a phenomenal technique to be able to play it many different ways. Although his iconoclasm sometimes got the better of him he certainly introduced countless people to Bach.


Bach listed no tempo for any of the 24 Preludes or 24 Fugues in the Well Tempered Clavier. The one most often played, the Prelude in C is played fast by some, slow by others.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Parley said:


> Gould's Bach is eccentric but then Bach gave no specific instructions how his keyboard music should be played. Gould had a phenomenal technique to be able to play it many different ways. Although his iconoclasm sometimes got the better of him he certainly introduced countless people to Bach.


From an interesting 1999 article by Schiff:


> Bach performance on the piano, however "inauthentic," can in fact be historically aware and well informed. The best textbooks and treatises of the time -- by C. P. E. Bach, Johann Joachim Quantz, Johann Philipp Kirnberger and others -- are all available in reprints, even for pianists. These sources will not teach us the ultimate secrets of music-making, but they are a treasury of information on style, esthetics, ornamentation, free improvisation and figured bass. In the end, C. P. E. Bach said, it all boils down to "buon gusto": good taste. In those days, too, it seems, there were plenty of people with "cattivo gusto."
> 
> The manuscripts give little information on certain aspects of interpretation: tempo, dynamics, phrasing, articulation, ornamentation. There was obviously no need to put everything in writing, for the musical language of the time was understood by those who possessed good taste. Performers were expected to fill in the gaps, following their musical knowledge and instincts. It is quite certain that Bach himself never played a piece twice the same way: thus the numerous versions of the Chromatic Fantasy, the French Suites and other works.


Schiff might've changed his tune on the "authenticity" question a little, but I love this little swipe here:



> Part of the answer, as the music historian Richard Taruskin has brilliantly pointed out, lies in the misapplication of the word "authenticity." Some musicians consider it a sin to perform Bach on the modern piano. They claim to have reconstructed the conditions and circumstances of the composer's time, and since the piano in its present form did not exist then, it is to be banned; Bach is to be played only on the clavichord and the harpsichord. Similarly, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert are supposed to be more enjoyable on the fortepianos of their times. And what are we allowed to play on a Steinway made in 1990? Maybe Elliott Carter.


 :lol:

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/arts/091299ns-bach-music.html


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> Schiff might've changed his tune on the "authenticity" question a little


Not "a little". He completely changed his mind. 
_
*Interviewer*: But even as late as the 1990s, you were still saying in interviews that, for example, you wouldn't think of playing Schubert on a fortepiano.

*Schiff*: I did say that, yes. I have to take it back, or I have to say that I was not well-informed, or plain stupid. One has to be flexible and one has to say, sometimes, I made a mistake; I was wrong. _

As he says, one has to be flexible.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Not "a little". He completely changed his mind.
> _
> *Interviewer*: But even as late as the 1990s, you were still saying in interviews that, for example, you wouldn't think of playing Schubert on a fortepiano.
> 
> ...


So does he play Bach on a harpsichord now?


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> So does he play Bach on a harpsichord now?


Dunno, maybe he will. As it is, he plays Schubert on a pianoforté. As he said: "one has to say, sometimes, I made a mistake."


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Dunno, maybe he will. As it is, he plays Schubert on a pianoforté. As he said: "one has to say, sometimes, I made a mistake."


Well iinm he does play the clavichord in private, but still plays Bach publicly on a modern grand piano. So I wouldn't say he "completely changed his mind". So far, only as regards Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

chu42 said:


> He loved Bach, sure-but consider his remarks about Mozart:


Gould had a lot of controversial views about composers; he apparently praises Mozart's fugal writing here: 



(But like Rosen, Gould sounds like his 'knowledge about Mozart's exposure to contrapuntal writing' is limited; sounds like he doesn't know that Mozart, in his Salzburg period, was already exposed to the contrapuntal writing of J.E. Eberlin, L. Mozart, A.C. Adlgasser, M. Haydn; so his remarks should be taken with a grain of salt.)

"I personally think that a lot of of the fugues in the Well tempered clavier are better off without their attending preludes and vice-versa." 




"I don't ever expect to persuade you of the pomposity of the fifth symphony, or the banality of the violin concerto or the empty rhetoric of the Appassionata sonata" 




"'a monstrosity,' the harmony 'wanders all over the lot'" (on Bach's chromatic fantasy and fugue)





"For me, the 'Grosse Fuge' is not only the greatest work Beethoven ever wrote but just about the most astonishing piece in musical literature."


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> Gould had a lot of controversial views about composers...


Pretty mild compared to many of the opinions on this forum. Like mine, that Mozart's choral works are his weakest compositions... Gould would have been right at home here.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> Gould had a lot of controversial views about composers; he apparently praises Mozart's fugal writing here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I understand that they sound hurtful to people. They sound hurtful to me since I've dedicated so much time and effort to such music. But if you're going to disagree with the 'facts' of what he presents here I suspect it would take a lot of thinking, and many words.
Everyone's musical brain is a little bit different and Gould is definitely a lofty example which sticks out to therapists. That's part of why he was such a treasure to (bored) audiences when he began making Columbia recordings in the 60s. It was a very big label to be doing that. It was so refreshing.


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