tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4764506766343254616.post1047663059994974816..comments2024-03-26T14:20:38.103-04:00Comments on The Thought Criminal: Glenn Gould As A Composer Who Lost His Way: The Idea of North Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4764506766343254616.post-21040422843792674372014-07-18T13:04:28.668-04:002014-07-18T13:04:28.668-04:00It can drive me nuts to hear someone of Gould'...It can drive me nuts to hear someone of Gould's intelligence and spectacular musical abilities ruin a recording with his mannerisms and self-indulgence. Sometimes, when everything is right, he is wonderful, other times I'm tearing my hair out. While I've still got a lot of hair I'm not taking any chances. His Bach recordings aren't the worst of it. I don't like his Mozart of Beethoven recordings, but there are so many of those that he's not likely to do much damage to them. It's his recordings of more obscure works or works which his will probably be the first one someone hears that really make me cringe. His tempos are frequently the worst of it and it's not as if he couldn't take things at tempo, his technique - especially after he gave up live performance for studio recording, was able to play anything he chose to play. I think he was always a great musician trapped by his incredible self-indulgence and his truly awful emotional disabilities. <br /><br />His radio work is brilliant, he should have done more of it. He was scheduled to retire from playing when he died, suddenly. I think he would have had a great couple of decades away from the piano, if he didn't take the detour he was considering into conducting. That recording of Wagner is truly, truly awful. The Thought Criminalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01381376556757084468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4764506766343254616.post-91011974543001343342014-07-18T11:59:16.349-04:002014-07-18T11:59:16.349-04:00As a quasi-musician who never took the strictures ...As a quasi-musician who never took the strictures of "classical" training as seriously as I should have, I still have a soft spot for Gould's interpretations of Bach (or even for his interpretation of Liszt's piano transcription of Beethoven's Fifth), despite the complaints of those more learned in music than I, like you and Leonard Bernstein (I have that recording, too, complete with Lennie's disavowal of what Gould made him do.s). <br /><br />His idiosyncratic reading of the famous Bach Prelude No. 1, for example, still intrigues me. Then again, I was never as skilled but always as emotive, as unwilling to pay attention to what the composer left behind, as Gould was. Of course, Bach left arpeggios; you have to get to Beethoven to get timings (the dreaded metronome! Bane of the existence of many a lazy piano student!). My teacher despaired of my over the top reading of "Fur Elise." He was right, I was wrong; but I stuck to my interpretation anyway. Probably a good thing I stopped taking lessons when I did.<br /><br />Which is not to say I'm arguing with you, or even disagreeing with you. I have a soft spot in my heart (and probably my head) for Gould. But the idea that he is a failed composer is an interesting one.<br /><br />Me, I'm just a failed pianist. So I can afford to admire him. ;-)Rmjhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06811456254443706479noreply@blogger.com