SF here is not on endangered species list, the subject is.

So, you got 2nd SF for free. :)

This clip is so wonderful that I was not able to resist the urge of posting it here. I am very glad that at least someONE here enjoys it.

After watching the clip, I did a quick research. GG heard Richter’s performance on his concert tour to Russia in 1957. It was a historical event to Russian’s music world. Here is something Richter’s (Emil Gilels’, too) teacher Heinrich Neuhaus on GG:

["I tell you quite frankly that Gould is not a pianist, he is a phenomenon." Neuhaus immediately understood something that much of the musical world didn't fully grasp until years later--that Gould was building a new bridge to Bach. His interpretations were so convincing, Neuhaus said, that he might have been a pupil of Bach himself; he could imagine Gould sharing Bach's meals and inflating the organ bellows for the master. "In this sense Gould is not 24, he is nearly 300," Neuhaus wrote, and the possessor of "great talent, great mastery, high spirit, and deep soul." Ever since Gould's visit, says Sofia Moshevich, the playing of Bach in Russia has been divided into two periods, before Gould and after Gould. As Neuhaus wrote, "Gould's appearance was quite an event in our life."]

You may read the whole article at: http://www.robertfulford.com/gould.html

I agree with you, GG belongs to the the 2nd category. Even before your question, I was thinking about the same. I thought about Horowitz and Rubinstein, the latter used to call the former a “pianist” and a “musician”. However, some people believe that there was fair among of showmanship in Rubinstein as well. Maybe it is not a black vs. white situation. There must be many shades of grey in between. And where would you place our own Lang Lang? BTW, Richter’s virtuosity was tremendous, only he chose to not show the “teeth” for the sake of showing them. Other names popped into my mind were Casals, Schnabel, Myra Hess … Could we extend it to the conductors? The difference between Furtwangler and his successor, Karajan? The latter had a totalitarian control of his “instrument”, the orchestra, yet his music was described as “Beauty without form, sound without meaning, power without reason, reason without soul – it is the deadly logic of Hi-Fi. Machines, we are told, will one day compose cymphonies. At present they merely perform them.” (David Cairns, senior British critic)

It gets too long again and I got to go.

所有跟帖： 

• 音樂家分兩大類...跟Passerby 紅珊瑚學習欣賞 -法國薰衣草- ♀ (0 bytes) () 04/09/2010 postreply 06:38:10

• Morning, 草班, 跟 Gould & Richter 學習. -Passerby- ♀ (0 bytes) () 04/09/2010 postreply 06:57:06

• We should re-label the classic SF, shall we? Lol... -RedCoralReef- ♀ (20 bytes) () 04/09/2010 postreply 10:22:48