# Gould and His Musical Philosophy



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Anyone who is familiar with Gould and his Philosophy able to recommend an orchestra that follows in his idea towards interpretation of Classical works?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Especially for pre-romantic era works. I love Gould's/Bell's Haydn/Mozart/Bach for example. Looking for Orchestras that do good versions of Bach's Masses and Mozart's Symphonies...interesting ones.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I am neutral to Gould. I like some of his Bach, some not so much. If you want an interesting version of the Mass in B minor, that sounds a little different, try this one by Jacobs




for Mozart symphonies, the best I heard so far was Jacobs as well




seems like I resonate well with Jacobs


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Jacck said:


> I am neutral to Gould. I like some of his Bach, some not so much. If you want an interesting version of the Mass in B minor, that sounds a little different, try this one by Jacobs
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I may actually prefer Gould's Mozart and Haydn to his Bach to be honest. Who do you like for Bach's keyboard works?

Has Jacobs done all of Mozart's late symphonies? His 38 is really well done!


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

and for Bach piano music, I like Perahia, Nikolayeva and Pires


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Anyone who is familiar with Gould and his Philosophy able to recommend an orchestra that follows in his idea towards interpretation of Classical works?


Gould believed that the performer should do whatever he felt like with the music, apart maybe change relative pitch. I'd listen to Bruno Maderna's recordings of Schubert and Mozart, they may be hard to find but I can upload them for you. He was a fabulous conductor! And maybe Harnoncourt is worth exploring in this respect too, I'm not sure. You could try Harnonourt's Paris Symphonies.

For solo piano, someone who seems to be a Gouldian in a way is Daniel Ben Pienaar -- his Beethoven is rather fine IMO.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

An example when Bernstein and the youthful Gould were in perfect agreement philosophically and musically. Those who want to skip Bernstein's terrific intro can start this amazing performance at the five-minute mark. I think it's representative of Gould at his best and Bernstein offers ideal support. I love the way Gould percolates along without sounding stiff and mechanical. Gould gave back Bach's youth and exuberance rather than playing him like an antique... such imaginative phrasing by Gould and Bernstein, both in total sync with each other:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'm really enjoying Jacobs, his interpretations are so rich! Thank you very much.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Gould doesn't have a consistent view of interpretation. His 2 versions of the Goldberg variations shows that. He said himself, he is not always satisfied when relistening to his interpretations he felt at the time they were performed. He really butchered some of Bach's WTC movements, not only to my ears. So not even his Bach is untouchable. But his technique is great. He graduated from my conservatory with honours at age 12.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> Gould doesn't have a consistent view of interpretation. His 2 versions of the Goldberg variations shows that. He said himself, he is not always satisfied when relistening to his interpretations he felt at the time they were performed. He really butchered some of Bach's WTC movements, not only to my ears. So not even his Bach is untouchable. But his technique is great. He graduated from my conservatory with honours at age 12.


You should try to speak more subjectively, state ur points as the opinions they are rather than the facts that they aren't, that you so want them to be!


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> You should try to speak more subjectively, state ur points as the opinions they are rather than the facts that they aren't, that you so want them to be!


What I said were facts, that he viewed works differently in different times, like with the Goldberg Variaitions. It's a fact the first version was faster than normal, and the 2nd slower than normal. And that he butchered WTC for many, not only to my ears. And his technique is great.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

For Bach's Masses try Karl Richter. The Perahia box set of Bach is a no brainer. It sells for under 20 dollars for 8 CDs. Includes solo piano and concertos.


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## ribonucleic (Aug 20, 2014)

Despite having read _The Glenn Gould Reader_ and listened to a number of his recordings, the only "philosophy" I can attribute to him is that he believed in technology as a means of providing the performing artist with the isolation and freedom to pursue their vision of the music.

Unless there's an orchestra that never performs publicly, relying on the sound manipulation afforded by a recording studio rather than their own instrumental balance, I can't imagine one being "Gouldian" in any meaningful sense.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I believe that Gould's philosophy at least about playing Bach is that because there are no phrase markings on most of Bach 's keyboard manuscripts, he was free to use his own, and I think he did so imaginatively. Having recently heard some of his performances of the WTC, I think he takes more liberties than usual with his somewhat eccentric and clipped phrasing, and that upsets some listeners. But these are not rote performances and I salute him for making each key his own, for better or worse. I think what I occasionally don't care for is that sometimes he sounds stiff, and that's not characteristic of most of his Bach recordings. It's possible that his fixation on Bach started to push him over the edge.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Morton Gould?
Harold Gould?
Elliott Gould?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I loved the Periah Gould keyboard works!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

ribonucleic said:


> Despite having read _The Glenn Gould Reader_ and listened to a number of his recordings, the only "philosophy" I can attribute to him is that he believed in technology as a means of providing the performing artist with the isolation and freedom to pursue their vision of the music.
> 
> Unless there's an orchestra that never performs publicly, relying on the sound manipulation afforded by a recording studio rather than their own instrumental balance, I can't imagine one being "Gouldian" in any meaningful sense.


One aesthetic idea he held is that music is abstract, that it's not essentially about sound. The Wagner transcriptions, and some of Gould's comments about how his transcriptions are different from Liszt's, bring this out clearly.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> One aesthetic idea he held is that music is abstract, that it's not essentially about sound. The Wagner transcriptions, and some of Gould's comments about how his transcriptions are different from Liszt's, bring this out clearly.


Yes, Gould opened my eyes to a much wider perspective. Classical scores are fortunately much more about visual image than we're taught, the clever visual patterns and the tactile experience as you express yourself. Of course he had this indescribable connection between the popping of his fingers and hands and the sounds that he was 'singing'. I only have that to the smallest degree, but it is an amazing experience every time. Many world-class players can likewise lose themselves in this mind/score connected world, but Glenn lived it to an extreme, so it's no wonder that he was so opinionated and able to create such different ideas out of the older composers' works. He surely wasn't like other artists ...and he didn't want to be like them. I think it was an inner struggle and we know that sometimes he got carried away. lol

You can start out looking at the scores of the popular songs, old standards, this way. It's simpler than with more serious music. It's so much more than just sounds. The bare sounds without all the production behind them are worth examining, and trying to understand, even though what we more likely remember for a long time and cherish is the whole "produced" expression.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I don't know much about his musical philosophy but he took risks and reaped the reward of "hit or miss" results. Some of his recordings are special but often his results were a little dull and not so special. There have been a good few iconoclasts performers and I for one am glad of that but at the end of the day the really profound performers produced wonderful and miraculous results without recourse to controversy.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Anyone who is familiar with Gould and his Philosophy able to recommend an orchestra that follows in his idea towards interpretation of Classical works?


Do you mean Glenn Gould or Morton Gould? The former was a pianist and never to my knowledge conducted an orchestra, whereas the latter was a prominent conductor as well as a composer.

Most replies here seem to assume you mean the former. A good indication of Glenn Gould's ideas about orchestral playing can be found in his own essays as republished in The Glenn Gould Reader. In one, Gould argues that Furtwangler was superior to Toscanini in the same way Mengelberg was superior to Weingartner. He also devotes a series of essays to perhaps his favorite conductor, Leopold Stokowski, whom he deeply respected and admired.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

fluteman said:


> Do you mean Glenn Gould or Morton Gould? The former was a pianist and never to my knowledge conducted an orchestra, whereas the latter was a prominent conductor as well as a composer.
> 
> Most replies here seem to assume you mean the former. A good indication of Glenn Gould's ideas about orchestral playing can be found in his own essays as republished in The Glenn Gould Reader. In one, Gould argues that Furtwangler was superior to Toscanini in the same way Mengelberg was superior to Weingartner. He also devotes a series of essays to perhaps his favorite conductor, Leopold Stokowski, whom he deeply respected and admired.


Here's a video of Glenn conducting some of the Mahler Second;


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Do a search on 'Glenn Gould with orchestra' and there are a number of recordings available to hear. His most controversial performance with orchestra was his famous Brahms Concerto No. 1 with Bernstein conducting. They battled over tempo and dynamic markings and Gould got his way... Bernstein went along with it because he held Gould in great respect and sometimes liked to experiment.

Gould had his angels and demons and would follow them come hell or high-water. I find the tempo at times rather glacial, again because Gould insisted upon it. I believe his philosophy of performance was clearly revealed in this recording, and he clearly loved Brahms and would like to draw out phrases as much as possible, perhaps due to his growing eccentricity that would sometimes appear in his performances. If Celibidache had heard this performance he might have considered the tempo as being _broad_ rather than _slow_. After hearing this recording again after many years, I find this does reveal a great number of details in the score worth hearing, with the sense that Gould didn't want to be rushed by Bernstein; instead, he wanted to take his own sweet time.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

From Gould's essays, it's safe to say he preferred conductors who regarded themselves as collaborators or even co-composers rather than those who meticulously followed the printed score. I think his collaborations with Bernstein do not serve as good examples, because Bernstein was just such a conductor, and when Gould was the soloist, HE wanted to be that collaborator, not cede that starring role to the conductor and orchestra. Bernstein was probably generous and gracious enough to give his soloists leeway in that regard, but Gould rather perversely (and I think intentionally) pushed it a bit too far in the case of the Brahms concerto, provoking a celebrated announcement from the equally theatrical Bernstein before the performance. I'll bet Gould was delighted with the resulting controversy.

But I stick with my original comment. Stokowski was Gould's ideal conductor, no doubt in large part because he too was highly theatrical.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

fluteman said:


> From Gould's essays, it's safe to say he preferred conductors who regarded themselves as collaborators or even co-composers rather than those who meticulously followed the printed score. I think his collaborations with Bernstein do not serve as good examples, because Bernstein was just such a conductor, and when Gould was the soloist, HE wanted to be that collaborator, not cede that starring role to the conductor and orchestra. Bernstein was probably generous and gracious enough to give his soloists leeway in that regard, but Gould rather perversely (and I think intentionally) pushed it a bit too far in the case of the Brahms concerto, provoking a celebrated announcement from the equally theatrical Bernstein before the performance. I'll bet Gould was delighted with the resulting controversy.
> 
> But I stick with my original comment. Stokowski was Gould's ideal conductor, no doubt in large part because he too was highly theatrical.


Gould said in an interview that he appreciated what Bernstein had said. He didn't think it was negative at all. Now, he might've felt obligated to say that to be polite, considering how young he was compared to the maestro.

I want the works to be presented as differently as they did. Why wouldn't we? I have a difficult time telling one recording of the Brahms First from others, because they're following the indications in the score as they're commonly interpreted. But there's room for originality. What would Brahms have said about originality? Is there anything written about what he disapproved of?


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Luchesi said:


> Gould said in an interview that he appreciated what Bernstein had said. He didn't think it was negative at all. Now, he might've felt obligated to say that to be polite, considering how young he was compared to the maestro.
> 
> I want the works to be presented as differently as they did. Why wouldn't we? I have a difficult time telling one recording of the Brahms First from others, because they're following the indications in the score as they're commonly interpreted. But there's room for originality. What would Brahms have said about originality? Is there anything written about what he disapproved of?


I don't know what Brahms would have said, but Gould was all about doing creative things in a highly original and distinctive way that would cause the audience to sit up and take notice, whether in his music, or his essays, radio programs, or anything else. Some of his creative ideas were more successful than others, as is often the case for such a performer. But they are all uniquely his. And I suspect he would have cared very little what Brahms might have thought about his approach.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

fluteman said:


> I don't know what Brahms would have said, but Gould was all about doing creative things in a highly original and distinctive way that would cause the audience to sit up and take notice, whether in his music, or his essays, radio programs, or anything else. Some of his creative ideas were more successful than others, as is often the case for such a performer. But they are all uniquely his. And I suspect he would have cared very little what Brahms might have thought about his approach.


Aren't all artists supposed to be "highly original and distinctive" in every artistic field?

He got up in the morning, it was the new day. There are five interpretations of a work he was going to record that day and so he chose one according to how he was thinking that day. Isn't this what we want?

I do that, to a far lesser degree of intensity, every time I approach a score.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Luchesi said:


> Aren't all artists supposed to be "highly original and distinctive" in every artistic field?
> 
> He got up in the morning, it was the new day. There are five interpretations of a work he was going to record that day and so he chose one according to how he was thinking that day. Isn't this what we want?
> 
> I do that, to a far lesser degree of intensity, every time I approach a score.


Sure, but we all don't have Gould's creative imagination. (Maybe you do, I don't know you.) And especially in the often stodgy and elitist world of classical music, it takes intestinal fortitude and a willingness to take risks to be as willing as he was to stand apart from the crowd.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Luchesi said:


> Aren't all artists supposed to be "highly original and distinctive" in every artistic field?
> 
> He got up in the morning, it was the new day. There are five interpretations of a work he was going to record that day and so he chose one according to how he was thinking that day. Isn't this what we want?
> 
> I do that, to a far lesser degree of intensity, every time I approach a score.


As a singer, I always thought my job was to try to understand and convey, as much I could through a study of the score and of the music's style and origins , the intentions of the composer. The idea that I was expected to do something "original and distinctive" with (or to) the music I performed never occurred to me. I always assumed that if I presented the music with integrity, such originality and distinctiveness as I possessed would be apparent without any special effort on my part.

Listening to Gould, I sometimes feel that the music serves the performer rather than the performer the music - that I'm listening to Gould and not to Brahms, Mozart, Wagner, or whomever. He is occasionally revelatory, often interesting (at least initially), but sometimes distracting, maddening, or downright absurd. Distinctiveness is a very limited virtue.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> As a singer, I always thought my job was to try to understand and convey, as much I could through a study of the score and of the music's style and origins , the intentions of the composer. The idea that I was expected to do something "original and distinctive" with (or to) the music I performed never occurred to me. I always assumed that if I presented the music with integrity, such originality and distinctiveness as I possessed would be apparent without any special effort on my part.
> 
> Listening to Gould, I sometimes feel that the music serves the performer rather than the performer the music - that I'm listening to Gould and not to Brahms, Mozart, Wagner, or whomever. He is occasionally revelatory, often interesting (at least initially), but sometimes distracting, maddening, or downright absurd. Distinctiveness is a very limited virtue.


Singing vs Gould's piano playing. That's interesting. Do you have an example of a singer who is as 'original' and eccentric in recordings like Gould was? Because I'd like to hear it and judge for myself.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Let's face it, Gould was a crackpot. Much of what he said was deliberately iconoclastic (like some of his playing) but with his playing he could get away with it. He took up lecturing after retiring from the concert hall and bored people stiff. He was a man who used his fame to do things he really wasn't;t that much good at - like writing.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Listening to Gould, I sometimes feel that the music serves the performer rather than the performer the music - that I'm listening to Gould and not to Brahms, Mozart, Wagner, or whomever. He is occasionally revelatory, often interesting (at least initially), but sometimes distracting, maddening, or downright absurd. Distinctiveness is a very limited virtue.


Yes, indeed, that's the price of being an iconoclast, especially one with a taste for the theatrical like Gould. And you're right that distinctiveness is a limited virtue, in the sense that at its extreme or when overused the distinctive can become little more than odd or even bizarre. But for me, with Gould those revelatory occasions make everything else worth putting up with.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> Yes, indeed, that's the price of being an iconoclast, especially one with a taste for the theatrical like Gould. And you're right that distinctiveness is a limited virtue, in the sense that at its extreme or when overused the distinctive can become little more than odd or even bizarre. But for me, with Gould those revelatory occasions make everything else worth putting up with.


The revelatory occasions make the bizarre occasions worth putting up with? Can't you just enjoy the one and skip the other?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Luchesi said:


> Singing vs Gould's piano playing. That's interesting. Do you have an example of a singer who is as 'original' and eccentric in recordings like Gould was? Because I'd like to hear it and judge for myself.


I suspect a singer who tried to be as peculiar as Gould would end up sounding ridiculous. But voices tend to have a built-in individuality which pianos don't, for whatever that's worth.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Let's face it, Gould was a crackpot. Much of what he said was deliberately iconoclastic (like some of his playing) but with his playing he could get away with it. He took up lecturing after retiring from the concert hall and bored people stiff. He was a man who used his fame to do things he really wasn't;t that much good at - like writing.


Which ones of his short talks did you find boring?


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I suspect a singer who tried to be as peculiar as Gould would end up sounding ridiculous. But voices tend to have a built-in individuality which pianos don't, for whatever that's worth.


That's why I asked, because I'm trying to imagine it. I admire Ameling's skill, she does some quirky things.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Luchesi said:


> That's why I asked, because I'm trying to imagine it. I admire Ameling's skill, she does some quirky things.


Well, there are plenty of singers with extraordinary individuality - Battistini, Caruso, Muzio, Schwarzkopf and Callas come to mind immediately - but I wouldn't call any of them eccentric, and none of them give me the impression of trying to be different.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

fluteman said:


> Yes, indeed, that's the price of being an iconoclast, especially one with a taste for the theatrical like Gould. And you're right that distinctiveness is a limited virtue, in the sense that at its extreme or when overused the distinctive can become little more than odd or even bizarre. But for me, with Gould those revelatory occasions make everything else worth putting up with.


It's interesting that I immediately hear Rubinstein, Michelangeli and usually Horowitz. More recently Arrau. Or perhaps it's just psychological..


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Well, there are plenty of singers with extraordinary individuality - Battistini, Caruso, Muzio, Schwarzkopf and Callas come to mind immediately - but I wouldn't call any of them eccentric, and none of them give me the impression of trying to be different.


They don't? Callas? Caruso? OK, well I don't have much experience with world-class singers.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> The revelatory occasions make the bizarre occasions worth putting up with? Can't you just enjoy the one and skip the other?


Most of the time, I would say the answer to that is yes.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Luchesi said:


> Which ones of his short talks did you find boring?


I was talking about his lecturing which his biographer says was so difficult and technical the audience could not follow


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

There's this side of Glenn:






I think his Klopfweiser is more convincing than his Brahms.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> There's this side of Glenn:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I greatly enjoy that aspect of Gould's repertoire. Some of his essays are equally funny, including a satire of Arthur Rubinstein's lengthy and in parts almost Proustian autobiography. Hey, when I said he was theatrical, I wasn't kidding.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

It's always fun to watch those old Canadian TV spots. Watch his face -- Gould is actually quite a good actor! Aside from being funny, of course.

Gould's long interview with Mozart, in the GG Reader, is a fascinating document.

Question: What unpleasant experience did Gould share with Beethoven?


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## Euler (Dec 3, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Question: What unpleasant experience did Gould share with Beethoven?


Life-changing falls? Beethoven claimed a fall triggered his deafness, Gould injured his back falling from a slipway


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I was thinking of: both were arrested for vagrancy. Beethoven in Vienna (he was also suspected of prowling) and Gould in Sarasota Florida, sitting on a park bench in the summer while wearing a hat, coat, and gloves. I guess that's frowned on in the Sunshine State. 

Identities were soon established, apologies were made, and both men were immediately released. Stravinsky, in Boston, didn't fare as well!


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

DavidA said:


> I was talking about his lecturing which his biographer says was so difficult and technical the audience could not follow


Those people should have been spared the experience. Someone should have told them that he wasn't just a 'fun' pianist.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

fluteman said:


> I greatly enjoy that aspect of Gould's repertoire. Some of his essays are equally funny, including a satire of Arthur Rubinstein's lengthy and in parts almost Proustian autobiography. Hey, when I said he was theatrical, I wasn't kidding.


This one is interesting;


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

here's the text

Scotch Rhapsody "Do not take a bath in Jordan, Gordon“ text: Edith Sitwell 

Do not take a bath in Jordan Gordon, On the holy Sabbath, on the peaceful day! Said the huntsman, playing on his old bagpipe, Boring to death the pheasant and the snipe - Boring the ptarmigan and grouse for fun - Boring them worse than a nine-bore gun. Till the flaxen leaves where the prunes are ripe, Heard the tartan wind a-droning through the pipe, 

And they, heard Macpherson say: "Where do the waves go; What hotels Hide their bustles and their gay ombrelles? And would there be room for me? - Would there be room, Would there be room for me?" There is a hotel at Ostend Cold as the wind, without an end, Haunted by ghostly poor relations Of Bostonian conversations (Like bagpipes rotting through the walls.) And there the pearl-ropes fall like shawls With a noise like marine waterfalls.

And "Another little drink wouldn't do us any harm" Pierces through the sabbatical calm. And that is the place for me! So do not take a bath in Jordan, Gordon, On the holy Sabbath on the peaceful day- Or you'll never go to heaven, Gordon Macpherson, And speaking purely as a private person That is the place - that is the place - that is the place for me! 

Old Sir Faulk Old Sir Faulk, Tall as a stork, Before the honeyed fruits of dawn were ripe, would walk And stalk with a gun The reynard-colored sun Among the pheasant-feathered corn the unicorn has torn, forlorn the Smock-faced sheep Sit And Sleep, Periwigged as William and Mary, weep... 'Sally, Mary, Mattie, what's the matter, why cry?' The huntsman and the reynard-colored sun and I sigh 'Oh, the nursery-maid Meg With a leg like a peg Chased the feathered dreams like hens, and when they laid an egg In the sheepskin Meadows Where The serene King James would steer Horse and hounds, then he From the shade of a tree Picked it up as spoil to boil 'for nursery tea' said the mourners. In the Corn, towers strain Feathered tall as a crane, And whistling down the feathered rain, old Noah goes again-- An old dull mome With a head like a pome, Seeing the world as a bare egg Laid by the feathered air: Meg Would be three of these For the nursery teas Of Japhet, Shem and Ham; she gave it Underneath the trees, Where the boiling Water Hissed Like the goose-king's feathered daughter--kissed Pot and pan and copper kettle Put upon their proper mettle Lest the flood begin again through these!﻿


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## Arrau1233 (Jun 12, 2020)

Larkenfield said:


> I believe that Gould's philosophy at least about playing Bach is that because there are no phrase markings on most of Bach 's keyboard manuscripts, he was free to use his own, and I think he did so imaginatively.


Ultimately every performer makes individual decisions regarding phrasing, don't they? Unless the interpreter is too "afraid" of the composer and decides to do nothing, which I find ironic because if they are playing Bach on a piano they are already "altering" Bach.



> Having recently heard some of his performances of the WTC, I think he takes more liberties than usual with his somewhat eccentric and clipped phrasing, and that upsets some listeners. But these are not rote performances and I salute him for making each key his own, for better or worse. I think what I occasionally don't care for is that sometimes he sounds stiff, and that's not characteristic of most of his Bach recordings. It's possible that his fixation on Bach started to push him over the edge.


I think ultimately his musical philosophy is one of clear and dry sound, in which no voice is lost. I find his phrasing choices and his decisions on the accentuation of different voices a genius' work. But those have varied in the different interpretations he has made of Bach. It's the clarity the one that never changes


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

This brief talk about Russian music is engaging. It's important to hear his perspective because he was otherwise so enigmatic.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Luchesi said:


> This brief talk about Russian music is engaging. It's important to hear his perspective because he was otherwise so enigmatic.


You're right. This is fascinating. Thanks.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Listening to Gould, I sometimes feel that the music serves the performer rather than the performer the music - that I'm listening to Gould and not to Brahms, Mozart, Wagner, or whomever.


How does that make sense? Gould is playing the actual sounds. What are you otherwise listening to, a "Platonic idea" of Brahms, Mozart, Wagner, or whomever? Is your imagination so vivid that it can overcome actual sensory input? Do you hear voices?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

DavidA said:


> Let's face it, Gould was a crackpot.


So was Einstein, and Mozart too, if you believe the movie.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> I suspect a singer who tried to be as peculiar as Gould would end up sounding ridiculous. But voices tend to have a built-in individuality which pianos don't, for whatever that's worth.


This is not an opera thread. Elizabeth Schwartzkopf hated Gould, for what it's worth, which is not much.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I suspect a singer who tried to be as peculiar as Gould would end up sounding ridiculous. But voices tend to have a built-in individuality which pianos don't, for whatever that's worth.


From a few recordings I have heard, Gould apparently _did_ think that he was a singer (or at least quite a hummer, and not the kind that you can drive).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I was thinking of: both were arrested for vagrancy. Beethoven in Vienna (he was also suspected of prowling) and Gould in Sarasota Florida, sitting on a park bench in the summer while wearing a hat, coat, and gloves. I guess that's frowned on in the Sunshine State.
> 
> Identities were soon established, apologies were made, and both men were immediately released. Stravinsky, in Boston, didn't fare as well!


Anybody got Glenn Gould's mugshot, just for the sake of staying on-topic? I'd love to see it. Apparently, Stravinsky was one of those "crackpots" too, or at least the cops thought so.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> How does that make sense? Gould is playing the actual sounds. What are you otherwise listening to, a "Platonic idea" of Brahms, Mozart, Wagner, or whomever? Is your imagination so vivid that it can overcome actual sensory input? Do you hear voices?


Yeah, but you know what he means, millionrainbows. Gould knows what the listener's expectations are, and he knows how to frustrate them, even confound them. He isn't afraid to go too far, which is fine imo, as we the audience can pick and choose from his output. Moreover, he isn't quite the bad boy provocateur that John Cage is, as he isn't willing to jettison the western musical tradition entirely, or at all really, he just wants to approach it from such a radically new angle that it can seem like he abandons it. At his best, he forces the audience to re-examine it too.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Luchesi said:


> This brief talk about Russian music is engaging. It's important to hear his perspective because he was otherwise so enigmatic.


His perspective? It's not a bad general summary for those coming fresh to Russian music. But there's nothing original about what he says in this talk, except perhaps (at the time at least) his statement that Miaskovsky was underrated. As an introduction to the Shostakovich Quintet it was the same tired, condescending nonsense one found in all the then current histories of 20thc music.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> Anybody got Glenn Gould's mugshot, just for the sake of staying on-topic? I'd love to see it. Apparently, Stravinsky was one of those "crackpots" too, or at least the cops thought so.


I believe the Stravinsky "mugshot" was from Stravinsky's visa application and that he was not arrested in America. But even in Switzerland musical eminence and old age might not keep you safe. Boulez was arrested there when he was 75 for terrorism. Apparently a provocative statement made decades earlier suggesting that opera houses should be burned down had led to his being on a watch list.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> You obviously have to take care in America but even in Switzerland musical eminence and old age might not keep you safe. Boulez was arrested there when he was 75 for terrorism. Apparently a provocative statement made decades earlier suggesting that opera houses should be burned down had led to his being on a watch list.


. . . or they listened to some of his compositions.


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