Posted on 09/25/2007 4:38:33 AM PDT by sitetest
Classical Music Ping List ping!
If anyone else has interesting articles about Glenn Gould and his 75th birthday, I’d be happy to ping them.
Fair warning - I’ll be out of the office pretty much after around 11:30 eastern time until tonight.
If you want on or off this list, let me know via FR e-mail.
Thanks,
sitetest
I bought one Glenn Gould CD. It was awful.
Personally, I never enjoyed listening to his recorded CDs -- his habit of 'humming' while playing was really disconcerting.
What was cool about him was that usually stuck to classical or pre-classical repertoire, which was not nearly so popular back then as romantic pieces. What Horowitz and Rubenstein did for Chopin and Liszt, Gould did for Bach. He was a purist too - whenever he played Bach on the piano he would refuse to use the sustain pedal. I know the humming annoyed a lot of people, but it never bugged me too much for some reason.
Really? Which one was it (that's not an aggressive question, just want to know)? I have many of his CDs and DVDs and enjoy them all. Sometimes, it's just a riot to listen to his interpretations, as in the first movement of his Appassionata, played at less than 1/2 tempo compared to other performers. It's bizarre, but, when one factors in the "Gould factor", effective in a way. His interpretations are always interesting to me, even if I don't care for them. I can see an intellectual foundation to what he is doing.
I'll admit that the singing could be annoying, but the same can be said for, say, Andre Watts live, and I just dismiss it as another eccentricity. But his books and columns on music are wonderful and enlightening.
I haven't sawed off the legs of a chair yet, but would like to acquire some of his technique that, apparently, didn't require much practice or maintenance.
Thought you might want to get in on this one. What are your thoughts?
I’ll stick with Marc-Andre Hamelin.
If you get a hold of some of that, please put it in a box and send me some, too. I'd pay you handsomely for it!
Sorry you didn’t like it.
We have several and enjoy them.
We especially like the quirky recording of the two- and three-part inventions.
sitetest
We’ve seen the film. Very cool.
sitetest
I never heard of Glenn Gould before.
Is that thorazine? I have forgotten the Smith Kline French drugs. But, if so, what do you object to?
We'd all get rich!
I don’t even remember the name of the CD. I bought it without knowing who Gould was. His “interpretations” are what turned me off. I was expecting the more normal classical tunes. I’m not much into the experimentations of some artists. I probably didn’t give him a fair chance.
Not, not Thorazine, but Dexedrine.
Gould self-medicated like crazy and it contributed to his premature death.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6v-AtqCiQw
Gould's recordings of the piano sonatas changed the way I've listened to Beethoven ever since.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpDLUxCSiJM
You say that he changed the way you've listened to the sonatas. Do you like his interpretations (in general)? Or do they enlighten you and cause you to look more skeptically at other interpretations? What do you think of the Appassionata?
At age three he could read music and had perfect pitch. At five, he composed music. At 12 he performed his first concert.
He died in 1982 in Toronto. The immediate cause of death was a stroke, hastened no doubt by the fact he was neurotic and had a prescription drug habit.
He rather prematurely withdrew from performing live ("I feel like a vaudevillian") due to the fact he felt he could better serve music from a recording studio than in a concert hall.
He was considered an eccentric for this and was also considered a hermit. But in actuality, he was into many other interests.....among them composing, broadcasting, conducting and experimenting in many aspects of technology.
Friends described him as gentle, kind, funny, charming, warm and loyal. He was a character to be sure, but he never strayed from his pursuit of the ideal in music.
He was and is considered one of the great pianists of the last century.
Leni
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