Glenn Gould Revisited

And the whole caboodle comes at only twenty dollars!

I've never been too hot on Gould's Bach, but I might give it another shot.

I had read the Tomassoni piece in the NY Times last night, BTW, and it's interesting to see he now goes for the 81 recording, while most critics used to favor the 'young GG' 55 performance.

Herman

The Gould 81 Goldbergs from an analogue master? What an excellent piece of news. I really like this performance, but have always been unsatisfied by the glassy digital sound, typical of the period. How right the Columbia engineers were to be suspicious of digital recording! If only this had occurred with other early digital recordings, but I guess that is just too much to hope for. I still find it astonishing that audio engineers could have listened to all those colourless, hollow recordings for most of the '80s and for some reason believed they were superior to late analogue.

Ross

i rememeber reading a classic ghost story about this session... they re-used a tape and there is strong print-through of a previous take somewhere in the GG.

regards
shahreza

That was a story in Stereophile. Something along the lines that you could hear (if you listen duperclosely) a marching band in the back-back-background.

Still it's funny that 6 months ago no one at the magazine was aware of the plans to put the 81 analogue recording on the market.

Herman

Now if Sony only has the sense to press a run of quality vinyl.

There is also a live version of the Goldberg Variations that Gould recorded early on, I believe in Vienna which is quite good.

Perhaps I'll investigate the new set. I'd rather just get the analog '81 set since I don't really care for the '55 set too much.

And I gotta agree with Ross. Late analog recordings were far superior to early digital recordings. Hell, some more recent digital recordings ain't so hot, either!

quote:

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Originally posted by herm:
That was a story in Stereophile. Something along the lines that you could hear (if you listen duperclosely) a marching band in the back-back-background....Herman

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Stereophile mentions this but IIRC it was that one part of the mixing desk was being used for another purpose at the time and there was a tiny leakthrough. But I can't remember where I heard that - maybe in an interview with an engineer.

SteveC

Amazon just delivered the discs, and I'm half way through the 81 Goldbergs. The sound is outstanding, as is the performance.

Ross

According to Amazon, it's not released here yet. Will definitely be getting this next week.

David

I picked up a copy too. I agree about the sound quality. Three discs for $14.99. What a deal. Sony has indeed started to remaster many other Gould recordings. They were on the shelf in Tower NYC but not yet available online. My only gripe is that they are packaged in digipaks. They do at least have original graphics.

I got this yesterday - yes the sound is an improvement on my digital copy. Funny to see how the booklet trips over itself trying to explain why analogue may have sounded better than digital.

Had a listen to the interview disc on the train this morning - not really sure why they bothered to include this.

David

I'll be ordering this title next week from Amazon.

If anyone wants me to pass on a 10% discount on this CD through Amazon's "Share the Love" program just send me your email address. I'll order by Thursday.

All sounds rather shameless to me. If you want the disc just order it anyway...............

Is it singalong-a-glenn? If so, all this effort may have been better served by a karaoke version.

throb

Glenn does all the karaoke himself. Piano playing and vocals for the price of one - all in fine analgue sound. A bargain.

David

By karaoke, I meant a version with the vocals ommitted [but maybe you knew that]. Possibly a blind spot here, but paying to hear a guy [however talented as an interpreter] sing along to Bach will always seem an incredibly irritating waste of money. The bizarre dry acoustic Gould insists on [plus edits] also makes any analogue/digital variations irrelevant in my view. OK, I'll go away.... everyone is entitled to their perversions I'm using smilies to make my point of view a bit more cheery. There doesn't seem to be a 'smiley through gritted teeth' available. Nevertheless, how do people put up with the 'vocalise'? I've never been able to sit through more than ten minutes of Gould without wanting to throw something. I'm genuinely interested as to how people cope with it.

throb

I like Gould's vocalisations, just as I do those of Keith Jarrett and Rudolf Serkin. It's part of the texture of the music.

Ross

If "texture of the music" is the same as "the music" (I guess not) I'm still trying to find that extra counter tenor stave in the score that says hum ad libitum.

Gould's (and Jarrett's) humming was just part and parcel of the McDonaldizing of Bach, just as Bernstein's hipshaking, jaw-aching Mahler (etc) was just a way to say "love my pelvis / love my music".

IMHO this popularizing approach is ultimately self-defeating. You win some and you lose some this way, in that people aren't listening for Bach, not really being able to appreciate Bach without orgasmic groaning just to know when the music gets hot. So in the end they're just waitng for the big groan

I was looking at the new edition yesterday, and after a while I said no to myself. Gould is just completely silly. I can do my own humming.

Herman

Well that does it, Herman. Not only do you like sissy French music, you called Gould "completely silly". The next time I'm in the Nethlerlands I'm afraid I'm going to have to beat you up.

Ross

I gotta agree with Ross and disagree with Herman here. I simply cannot accept that vocalising in any way cheapens or "popularizes" music. Gould may be somewhat extreme at times, but that does not detract from the music. Hell, the man moans and groans during Krenek and Berg. I think it would be somewhat difficult to say that those two composers are "popular" or have been "popularized" in any way. And, for my money, Rudolf Serkin's humming can be just as noticeable at times. I can even hear him during the Emperor. I simply cannot accept that the humming in his (multiple) performances of that work constitute a "McDonaldizing" of the music. Indeed, it would hard to argue that many of his recordings are anything other than masterful. Pollini, too, is quite noisy at times. (Check out the Concert sans Orchestre from last year!) Moravec is audible from time to time, as are a number of pianists.

I've always just accepted extraneous noise as part of the experience. (Like when I saw Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg play the Brahms Violin Concerto and she emphatically stomped on the floor during the cadenzas.) Some performers are so involved with the music that they are impelled to hum along, or perhaps engage in other behavior, and they may not even be aware of it, or at least the extent of it. What is most important is whether the right notes are played with conviction.

Ross, Todd,

I suspect this is yet another case of Herman being more preoccupied with how he writes something than the ideas that are put down.

My first experience with a Gould recording was ages ago as a student. A friend had let me crack open and listen to a set of the Partitas that I'd picked up for him at a shop that was on my way home. Even though I was aware of the pianists tendency to sing along, it wasn't until about half way through the second disc that it struck me what was going on and that the "noises" weren't some sort of weird laughter and conversation from my neighbours above.

What Gould typically does is so uncorrelated with the music, the "McDonald's" idea is simply preposterous. Anyone reading Herman's post could easily be forgiven for expecting the sort of wankery Bobby McFerrin engages in with classical music. Now that boy is sissy.

Vuk.

ersatz wit sign

I guess I got a little carried away by Ross's comment that Gould's humming is to be enjoyed as a "part of the texture of the music." I think that's just nonsense, and reminded me of people who only like their classical when it's presented in this flamboyant way with a dousing of extraneous drama (e.g. Bernstein).

I guess I'm wrong*. I'm a bit of a Midwestern sourpuss in this respect. I have no problem with some extraneous stuff, but I do feel uncomfortable when it becomes a part of the show - it's happened recently with Gergiev's much-commented on butterfly lefthand, and you betcha, I don't go to Gergiev concerts anymore. No one however listens to the elder Serkin for the humming, or goes to a Chung concert hoping a major hairdo redo as I once witnessed during a Berg concert. (never mind the phrasing, Vuk, I was born that way.)

However it's a bad idea (of mine) to judge an artist solely on the kind of audience response he gets (or the way his quirks are fetishized in the press). Gould and Bernstein are excellent musicians, and the fact that people like Ross are only waiting for the groans to come doesn't change that.

So after this bit of voluntary self-criticism I feel a lot better and hopefully I'm still allowed to lurk in the Music Room? Gotta run for the airport now waiting for Ross to make it thru customs and beat me up. (I'll be the guy with the ersatz wit sign!)

Herman

*I also guess I'm just teasing Ross (just so you'll know, Vuk)

Herman, it's not widely known, and hardly detectable from the recordings, but Furtwangler also used to hum along during his performances, especially in the slow movements of Bruckner symphonies, occasionally breaking into full song (usually something from Gilbert & Sullivan).

Celibidache, in his younger and more mobile days, was often known to dance around the podium during the dull bits. Koussevitsky liked to tell jokes between movements, and Mengelberg used to sneak up behind the soloists and hit them on the head with the score. Mravinsky did Stalin impressions, and the great Mahler himself, while conducting his own symphonies, would occasionally turn to the audience and exhort them to "get up and boogie".

In this context, I think your criticism of a little humming is somewhat churlish.

Ross

(about to board the plane to Amsterdam with my brass knuckles*)

* a present from Toscanini, inscribed "I hope these bring you as much joy as they have me".

On the whole I don't find Gould's humming much of a problem. He's certainly not the only offender - Colin Davis' conducting seems to be increasingly afflicted by humming over the years where you can now hear it from the back of the hall, Rattle now has his moments, and then there was Karajan's climatic croaks.

David

... it's not just the humming, ultimately I almost could, and almost have, learn't to almost ignore that, but not quite. Today I ordered Angela Hewitt's Goldbergs, after being impressed with her Well Tempered Clavier and Tocattas. Heregoes. I don't like the way GG sounds, he sounds to me like some one playing in a hotel lobby showing off his talent. He's worse [even more showy] on the recording of Sonatas for Violin and Viola de Gamba with Laredo and Rose respectively. I don't know, maybe that is the way it was meant to be played, but I've bought alternative recordings any way.