To Passerby: Glenn Gould on Beethoven

Dear Passerby： Thanks for the clip, it is a very captivating interview. What an unusual man and character!

I certainly disagree with what he said to Beethoven’s work. But in order to understand why he said what he said, I have to walk in his shoes. From his point of view, he adored fugue and canon, so that anything that didn’t have a contrapuntal form as fugue and canon are simply not well structured and not logical. The passage of Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto he referred as “tiresome idea” is obviously not in contrapuntal form. Eventhough it has other meanings, but he didn't care about that.

And think about the fact that he sings while he is playing, he simply can’t stop that. How frustrated he would be when he is playing the famous opening notes of Beethoven’s 5th symphony that he can’t sing along!

He only likes the things he feels comfortable with. His chair for example, when his chair got so beaten up over the years and was making squeaking sound during the performance and recording, he still insisted to use that chair! He didn’t like live performance, and so he abandoned the concert platform at the age of 31 to concentrate on studio recording and other projects. He is one that had the nerve to say whatever he didn’t like and not care about how others think. He is a mixture of extremely talented and messed up as well.

I do appreciate his interpretation of Bach. For example, I heard the Goldberg Variation before, but until I heard Gould’s 1981 recording of that piece, I said to myself: how could I not to fall in love with this piece before? It was Gould who leads me into Bach’s world.

It is very interesting conversation.

Thank you and have great new week!

所有跟帖： 

• 一程歌好嗓子,能幫我喚一聲嗎? -紅珊瑚- ♀ (0 bytes) () 03/21/2010 postreply 17:02:55

• Same here. I love GG's Goldberg Variations, both -碧薇- ♀ (202 bytes) () 03/21/2010 postreply 20:15:19

• Yes, Well said. We are all humans. -紅珊瑚- ♀ (0 bytes) () 03/21/2010 postreply 20:38:22

• Talking about the two recordings, have you listened to this -Passerby- ♀ (65 bytes) () 03/22/2010 postreply 08:45:34

• Thanks. I would say GG is one of the most creative painists. -碧薇- ♀ (0 bytes) () 03/22/2010 postreply 13:16:34

• I like his 1981 recording more than his 1955 recording. -紅珊瑚- ♀ (0 bytes) () 03/22/2010 postreply 22:11:49

• 路過~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -一程歌- ♂ (41 bytes) () 03/22/2010 postreply 07:24:21

• 一程歌名不虛傳，好嗓門:))) 謝了！ -紅珊瑚- ♀ (0 bytes) () 03/22/2010 postreply 20:18:01

• 回複：To Passerby: Glenn Gould on Beethoven -Passerby- ♀ (1495 bytes) () 03/22/2010 postreply 08:42:26

• 回複：回複：To Passerby: Glenn Gould on Beethoven -紅珊瑚- ♀ (693 bytes) () 03/22/2010 postreply 20:13:51

• Here is the Bernstein pre-concert speech: -Passerby- ♀ (2385 bytes) () 03/22/2010 postreply 08:55:08

• But after the performance, Bernstein said： -紅珊瑚- ♀ (323 bytes) () 03/22/2010 postreply 20:30:12

• I've even found the audio clip of that speech. -Passerby- ♀ (59 bytes) () 03/22/2010 postreply 08:58:46