1955 Glen Gould re-performed

Dear Cheese,

I make no claim to being a saint. I try to do the right thing each day, and do not always succeed of course. If you think I ruined your thread I am sorry.

Kindest regards from Fredrik

PS: The reason I suggested a new thread was to invite Droodzilla to join in without taking this thread off-topic, and to ask him to look out for it, as we would eventually go off the topic of Gould's Bach if we continued here. It was not done because I am a pure soul. No one is that...

I have worked out a rather important flaw in the idea of "re-perfomance" as managed using a player piano, and computer software to define what the performer did at the real recorded performance.

When any instrumentalist plays a particular instrument in a particualr space, and also on a particular day, their response is taylored to the way their instrument sounds. It varied according to the instrument, the mood and the acoustic of the venue. Have these things been replicated by this recording. Apparently not, as even the piano is not from the same maker let alone being of the same model. That might have been a starting point, and appears a serious blunder in this particualr enterprise.

to listen to the samples of the Aria, it does give the impression of entirely differnent sounding performances. The Cortot sample seem even less alike than the Gould ones...

Recreating the reaction of a performer to his his particualr instrument and cercumstances cannot ever yeield quite what the performer would have actually achieved in person! The original recording gives a facsimile of it, but a re-performance will not even give that much, but may relay some fdundamental stylistics traits, of the performer, while giving a strangely uncommunicative reading of the music itself. What is being communicated? It is an important question...

Kindest regards from Fredrik

So it was all a waste of time and efort then,none of the above occured to them,if only they had listened to the bloke in the Hifi argument room.

quote:

Originally posted by bad boy dan:
So it was all a waste of time and efort then,none of the above occured to them,if only they had listened to the bloke in the Hifi argument room.

No, but, as I've said, I don't think there was much more point than academic interest. And, doubtless, that it will bring in some money.

regards, Tam

*

There are a number of questions being asked on this thread including ...

a) Is Glenn Gould any good
b) Should Bach be played on the piano
c) Is the new recording a good idea and does it work

The first two questions are irrelevant to the qulaity of the recoring since I think the project worked as follows .. "We like Glenn Gould's performance of 1955 -- let's try to make a 'new' recording with better [stereo] sound and no singing". The question then is have they succeeded.

I would certainly argue that it is a legitimate approach to try to use a mechanical piano. I have a CD [on Nimbus] of pianola recorgings made on a modern piano but based on piano rools recorded by -- among others -- Busoni. Unfortunatly I do not seem to be able to post a picture of the CD cover ...

James H.

P.S. I am trying to insert a picture [GIF] but there only seem to be options to insert links to pictures ?

P.P.S. I wonder about the technical difficulties of the re-recording project. I reason as follows .. assume that a note on the original recording is exactly 1 second long. It starts with the key being struck and ends with the key being lifted [no pedal is used]. The mechinical piano can be adjusted so have the correct volume/loudness at the start of the note but its volume at the end of 1-secod will depend on the resonance etc of the piano and could well be different to the note on the original recording. But I assuem the piano can be adjusted to some extent. In any case there are the same problems with the piano rools.

ends==

James,

The image you want to insert must be on the web somewhere, them all you have to do is type {img}web address of image{/img} with the curly brackets replaced with square ones. If the image is sitting on your hard disk, you can always use us a photo hosting service somewhere.

I'm not sure A can be entirely divorced from analysing the merits of this new recording. One comment earlier on the thread ran along the lines that it was good because it was Gould without the breathing. In that the merits of this recording were being judged in relation to the genuine recordings. I do largely agree that the piano issue is a separate (though rather interesting one).


regards, Tam

Thanks Tam -- I think Naim used to allow photos to be uploaded.

Here is [I hope] the image ...

[IMG]
http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/41AAPK2QYHL._SS500_.jpg
[/IMG]

The idea is that they took some old pianola recording [see the list of pianists] and played them back on a modern piano.

James H.

P.S. I sort of like Gould's singing -- it shows his involvment in the music...

ends==

Without getting into the political debate, I have both the new and the old performances and I think Zenph did a wonderful job at capturing the playing nuances of the original performance.

Frankly, I was surprised, as the "Dick Hyman plays Fats Waller" (Reference Recordings)performed on the Bosendorfer Reproducing Grand sounded quantized (time corrected)and perhaps even sped up in parts. In short, it sounded somewhat mechanical to my ears. I believe Zenph used the Yamaha Disklavier.

On the other hand, I don't think I would have known the Zenph performance was performed on a player piano.

yes, exactly. not sure what modern piano vs. whatever has to do w/ the fact it's a fascinating effort. if one is a "digital luddite" in the era of virtual reality, i'm afraid you're likely to be swept away in a sea of 7-channel, iphones, and hold signals. personally, i wish on one level cd had never come along, but here it is. sort of like naim - now they m ake great cd players, but for a time they were pretty grumpy about the whole redbook thing.

anyway, just trying to have a little fun listening to my sony sacd player (erp).

Is the world a worse place because of it or better?

Those who oppose to this new recording have actually not listened to the CD yet.

Zenph must have hired a very very compotent expert on Bach (not the one lurking in Naim newsgroup) to ensure that their first recording will not be an embarrassment for them. If the first recording is a blunder, nobody will buy the next re-perform recording.

I am really impressed by the quality of both the recording and the playing.

Fredrik, you need to listen to the CD first and then give us your full analysis.

RS

I listened to the original LP!

That was quite enough information about style and anachronism, if not necesaarily about the sound of Mr Gould's piano!

ATB from Fredrik

fred, you'd have to listen on a decent sacd 5-channel rig anyway. just fuggetaboutit. nobody is going to twist your arm. but you're missing the point of the thread, old top, as the whole phenomenon is quite fascinating, kind of like 3-d glasses, and if you haven't experienced it, can't really see that. you can call it a gimmick, but that's probably what they said about planes in the 1920's, etc. best, fid.

Dear Fiddy!

In the 1960s I remember going on jet airliners and propellor airliners! Only to Norway, and best of all on the Fred Olsen lines ships! Much better than any aircraft!

I have never had too much intersst in the sound of replay. The phrasing, the articulation, and the tempo nuancing come out in any case, and the sound is almost a luxury. What would be the iltimate luxury would have been to find Helmut Walcha on harpsichord first! Then I would be letting this Thread pass by un-remarked upon!

I know there is a difference of opinion on Gould, but someone needs to stick up for musical consevatism! It is all too easy to be radical, but it important to realise what is being ignored or cast aside out. If it is good why reject the conservative. Conservatism does not equalte to conservative with a capital C, or even cautious! Walcha is positively exhuberant, but also entirely within the style.

ATB from Fredrik

Fredrick,
If this thread was about Walcha and people were putting the knife in and you defended him then no problem.

But its about Gould and you are putting the knife in as you always do,so your argument about defending Coservatism does not wash.

I think that none of this has anything to do with musical style and everything to do with personality.

All the best BB.

Whatever one's opinion about Gould's Bach, it cannot be denied that Gould's popularity (or notoriety if you so choose) exposed Bach's music to thousands of folks who probably would not have listened to his solo instrumental works. Apart from a relatively few specialists, who the hell even heard of the Goldberg Variations before Gould's 1955 recording?

Dear Oldnslow,

I doubt that it would have been commercially recorded in 1931 by Wanda Landowska, had no one even heard of it before 1955. Gould himself performed it at the 1955 Salzburg, so I would think that the work was fairly well known by then.

I don't have any first hand evidence though.

ATB from Fredrik

Obviously Bach specialists had heard of the Goldbergs before 1955, but Gould's recording, and his subsequent Bach recordings, sparked great enthusiasm in his instrumental music among the listening public, and probably many musicians, that did not exist before. For that, Gould is owed a debt of gratitute. You may now go back to your critique of his playing...

Nyonyo,

I don't see anything wrong with having philosophical objections to what has been done here (though as I've said, I don't have a problem with people enjoying the result). But even if I didn't, you are not entirely correct.

On my post about 2/3 down the first page, I mention that on Radio 3 a couple of weeks back they played a number of exerts. True, I haven't listened to it in full, but what I have heard has not left me wanting more.

regards, Tam

Tam and Fredrik,

Both of you have not listened to the SACD format. Once you guys have a chance to listen to the SACD format (not from a radio), you let us know what you think. The discussion will be much more credible once you analyze the real SACD.

By the way, the disc is dual layer. Therefore, if you do not have an SACD player, you can play the CD on a regular player.

RS

Sound quality is almost never a prime consideration when I buy a CD (Mahler's 8th symphony being the only exception that springs to mind), and my reasons not wanting to investigate the new disc further have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

I don't have a SACD player anyway. True, it's a hybrid, and so would play just fine in my 5x. But, to be honest, it played just find on my NAT101 which delivers pretty good quality (based on the occasions I've been able to compare it with a CD I've later bought).

regards, Tam

quote:

Originally posted by Tam:
Sound quality is almost never a prime consideration when I buy a CD

It is really baffling....Why did you even buy a CD5X play if you do not care about the sound quality of the CDs that you buy. Why don't you just buy a Sony player that may cost only $100 and you can listen to the music happily?

RS

I didn't say I didn't care about sound quality, I said it wasn't a prime consideration when buying a disc. Certainly, all other things being equal, I would like it to be as high as possible, but it comes in behind issues like how emotionally satisfying a performance is and the technical quality of the playing.

Why buy a 5x and not a £100 Sony? A fair question (and given my previous player was a £300 Sony, one I'm in a reasonable position to answer). The answer is very simple: the former reproduces what is on the disc much more faithfully. This is just as essential with poorly recorded discs, arguably more so (which are often the only way to enjoy certain artists) - a 5x can unlock far more on a vintage disc than can any £100 player I've experienced. On a poor system, a badly recorded disc can be unbearable to listen, I've yet to have that problem with my system (excluding recordings which I dislike musically - many of which are superbly recorded).

regards, Tam

This recording gets top marks in a review in HiFi+ (fwiw)