During September and October 2007, Sound Advice host Rick Philips focused on Great Gould recordings on the Sound Advice Library. Music by J.S. Bach was highlighted but Rick featured music by composers that were also close to Glenn Gould’s heart.
The Glenn Gould Edition: Byrd, Gibbons, Sweelinck
Sony Classical SMK 52589
Outside of Canada, Glenn Gould is known almost exclusively as a Bach pianist. His recordings of the Goldberg Variations, the English and French Suites and the keyboard concertos by Bach have eclipsed his many recordings of music by composers. And yet Gould had many interests and loves besides Bach. Gould actually claimed, more than once, that his favourite composer was not Bach at all, but Orlando Gibbons, one of the English Renaissance Tudor composers.
One of Gould’s favourite recordings – his No. 1 Desert Island Disc according to him, was a recording of hymns and anthems by Orlando Gibbons with the Deller Consort. In 1970, he wrote that, beginning in his teenage years, this music and this particular recording had moved him more deeply than any other sound experience he could think of. Gould wrote, “In fact, this is the only disc in my collection, three copies of which I have literally worn out.”
A typical early piano recital by Gould often began with music by Gibbons or William Byrd before moving on to Bach and maybe Beethoven, wrapping up with the Second Viennese School and music by Alban Berg or Anton Webern. Gould felt that the music of the English Tudor composers like Gibbons and Byrd, was the perfect preparation and complement to the study of the music by J. S. Bach.
But in the 1960s and 70s, this English Renaissance keyboard music was hardly popular. Gould’s record company at the time, CBS, was first, reluctant to record any of it, and secondly, kept it on ice for years, once it had been recorded.
Typically for Gould, when it was released, there were the usual hot and cold reviews. Some critics could not get past the fact that this music, written for virginals (a smaller and simpler rectangular form of the harpsichord), was played on a modern concert grand piano. Yet just as many raved on about the innovation and imagination of Gould. Gould himself loved it, and thought it was one of his best recordings to date.
William Byrd was Gibbon’ senior by 40 years. In the liner notes to the original release of this recording, Gould called Byrd, “the patron saint of keyboard writing.” He went on to claim that Byrd was one of the naturals of keyboard composition, along with Scarlatti, Chopin and Scriabin. He concluded his praise of Byrd by writing that, “….all of his prolific output for the keyboard is distinguished by a remarkable insight into the ways in which the human hand can most productively be employed upon it.”
The Gould traits in this music are distinct and distinguishable. Notice the always-present rhythmic sense – an underlying momentum to the music that never lags. Then there’s the voicing of the various parts – Gould’s love and grasp of structure and form and how he highlights them. There’s also the typical Gould clarity – in the parts as well as the elaborate ornamentation. And maybe above all - the live, love, energy and spirit he gives this music.
The Glenn Gould Edition: Beethoven, Liszt
Sony Classical SMK 52636
Franz Liszt transcribed all of the Beethoven Symphonies for solo piano in the middle of the 19th Century. Gould was never a fan of Liszt’s piano music, nor most of the 19th Century piano virtuoso’s repertoire. He hated flash and virtuosity, and, as he put it, “the primeval human need for showing off.”
He had studied a few pieces by Liszt as a student, with his teacher Alberto Guerrero – “Sins of his youth”, as he put it. But throughout his life he tended to hate most “pianist’s music” and referred to Liszt more than once as a second-rate composer.
Gould probably approached the Liszt transcriptions of the Beethoven Symphonies more out of a sense of curiosity, than love or admiration. Gould enjoyed transcriptions and made several himself. He was probably more interested in how Liszt had made his transcriptions – the actual art of transferring orchestral music to the piano.
Gould toyed with the idea of recording all nine of the Beethoven Symphonies on the piano for CBS Records. He only got around to the 5th and the first movement of the 6th. He later performed the complete Symphony No. 6 for a live CBC Radio Recital in 1968, and that was released commercially in 1980.
When it first came out in 1968, this recording of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 included liner notes written by Glenn Gould. They display another example of Gould’s wacky wit and humour. He loved impersonations and impersonators – Rich Little was one of his favourites. So for these liner notes, Gould dreamt up four imaginary reviews by four imaginary critics. They were the English critic Sir Humphrey Price-Davies, the German Prof. Dr. Karlheinz Heinkel, the American - a psychiatrist, Dr. S. J. Lemming, and the Hungarian Zoltan Mostanyi. In these fictional reviews, he poked fun, by referring to himself as, “that extravagantly eccentric Canadian pianist” and “one timid, spineless pianist who sold his soul to the enslaving dollar.” In the review by the fictional English critic, Gould even commented on his retirement from the concert stage a few years earlier. He wrote, as Sir Humphrey Price-Davies, “Mr. Gould has been absent from British platforms these past few years, and if this new CBS release is indicative of his current musical predilections, perhaps it is just as well.”
These Liszt transcriptions of the Beethoven Symphonies have been recorded several times by several pianists, but in the 1960s, this was pretty new. And once again, by breaking from the norm, Gould underwent hot and cold reviews. Some trashed the recording as an absurd, complete waste of his talents, while others raved on about the display of technical brilliance and how Gould forces us to listen to familiar music with fresh ears.
Glenn Gould & Leonard Bernstein: Piano Concerto No. 1 by Brahms
Sony 60675
I mentioned before in this series, Glenn Gould had trouble with the concept of 19th Century virtuoso piano music. He referred to it, derogatorily, as “pianist’s music” and he hated the primeval human need for showing off – one of the traits he felt was intrinsic in the 19th Century concerto.
In the late 1950s, Gould had taken the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor into his repertoire and in April 1962, he was scheduled to play it in New York City with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein. But, after much thought, Gould had developed an out-of-the-ordinary interpretation, and called Bernstein, to alert him to it. In his reading of the Brahms D Minor Concerto, Gould wanted to downplay the grandeur and romantic sweep of the work. The contrasts between the solo piano and the orchestra would be minimized, along with the showy virtuosity. Instead, Gould wanted to highlight continuity over contrast, to feature inner voices and the contrapuntal qualities, or the relationships between the musical lines. It was more introspective than extroverted – more contemplative than competitive.
As Gould himself later wrote,
“The peculiarities of my interpretation largely concern themselves with an attempt to subordinate the soloist’s role, not to aggrandize it – to integrate rather than isolate.
The result, perhaps, is a singularly unspectacular approach to this work. It is not a conciliatory approach, but I do not, by any means, propose that this is the only way to do Brahms – or to do this piece. Yet I feel that it is an approach which takes cognizance of the nature of the piece and that, within its own necessary limits, it works.”
The rehearsals began in New York, but Leonard Bernstein had a more traditional view of the Brahms 1st Concerto. By 1962, Gould and Bernstein had developed a friendship that allowed them to be honest with one another. With Gould’s consent, Bernstein addressed the audience before the performances with a kind of disclaimer to the interpretation that would be heard. He admitted he was not in agreement with Mr. Gould, but that he was willing to go along for the sportive element. In many ways, that’s how Bernstein summed up his relationship with Glenn Gould. He was an artist who loved music, but not to just adore it on a pedestal. To Gould, loving it meant to experiment with it, to try new things, in an effort to get to know it better, and love it more. Bernstein said;
“Mr. Gould is so valid and serious an artist that I must take seriously anything he conceives in good faith.”
Of course the New York music critics trashed the performances, and Gould, as well as Bernstein. One of the critics even suggested that the extra slow tempos were chosen because Gould was not up to the technical demands. But they missed “the sportive element, the spirit of adventure” in music, that Bernstein spoke about from the stage. As Bernstein said about Gould,
“We can all learn something from this extraordinary artist who is a thinking performer.”
Glenn Gould: Bach Recital Italian Concerto
CBS Odyssey MBK 42527
Glenn Gould’s two recordings of the Goldeberg Variations by J. S. Bach are widely known and loved. He recorded the Goldbergs in 1955 as his first commercial recording – the one that launched his career. Then 26 years later, in 1981, he recorded the Goldberg Variations again. It was one of the last recordings he made. The differences are notable – from the brilliance and life he gave the work in his early twenties in 1955, to the more mature, soul-searching intensity of the 1981 version.
It wasn’t Gould’s habit to re-record works, but he did do it just a few times, and another example, other than the Goldbergs, is the two recordings of the Italian Concerto by Bach. The first was made in 1959 in New York City. The second was made 22 years later in Toronto in 1981.
There’s a lot of confusion related to the title of this Bach composition. Why is this work for solo keyboard titled the Italian Concerto, using a term that implies a solo instrument with orchestra? In 1735, Bach published Part 2 of his Clavier-übung or Exercises for the Keyboard. It consisted of a Concerto in the Italian Style – the Italian Concerto, and the Keyboard Partita in B Minor, also known as The Overture in The French style. Both were intended for a harpsichord with two manuals, “composed for music lovers to refresh their spirits,” as Bach wrote on the title page.
To Bach, music was a love, a hobby, a fascination and a vocation. Although he was very provincial geographically – he never left Germany – he was very continental in his musical outlook. Bach knew what was going on musically in Italy, France, England, Poland and so on. He poured over scores from those countries and enjoyed transcribing some of this music, to learn the style and grasp the forms. Bach was able to assimilate any style, form or musical pattern into his own, through study and transcription. His many re-arrangements of concertos by Vivaldi are good examples. For the Italian Concerto, Bach went a step further. The music and the arrangement are both by him. In essence, the Italian Concerto is Bach’s re-creation, in solo keyboard terms, of a standard Italian solo concerto a la Vivaldi or Corelli. It’s in the standard three movement form of the Italian concertos of the time – fast/slow/fast. The highly ornamented solo line in the slow middle movement has all the trappings of an oboe or violin concerto. The original title tells all – A Concerto in the Italian style.
Glenn Gould recorded the Italian Concerto first in June, 1959 in New York City. There was also a 30 min. documentary by the National Film Board Of Canada made during the studio session of this recording called, Glenn Gould On The Record. Gould never hid the fact that this was not one of his favourite pieces by Bach, but you’d never know it from the playing. The outer movements especially, are some of the most brilliant and vibrant of all the recordings he made.
The Glenn Gould Silver Jubille Album featuring the 1981 version of the Italian Concerto
Sony 60686
Gould re-recorded the work 22 years later, in Toronto in Aug. 1981. It was his final recording of music by Bach – a composer that had become so closely associated with him during his career, and to the present day. But, after recording, mixing and editing, Gould was unhappy with the recording and refused to release it. It’s not clear why. It may’ve been for artistic, interpretive reasons – it may’ve been technical. The Gould scholar and biographer Kevin Bazzana writes that on Gould’s last surviving notepad, a reminder was written to, “check Italian.” But the date he marked to check it, turned out to be the Saturday after his death on October 4, 1982.
The 1981 recording is slower, not quite so detached, and there’s more of an emphasis on the left hand, with some different articulation. Was that the problem for his refusal to release it? We’ll never know.
The Glenn Gould Edition: Brahms: 4 Ballades, Op. 10; 2 Rhapsodies, Op. 79; 10 Intermezzi
Sony Classical SM2K 52651
Gould began to play Brahms as a teenager, and the late Brahms Intermezzos were common repertoire in his early recitals. I’ve mentioned before that Gould disliked most 19th Century piano virtuoso repertoire – Chopin, Liszt or Bach. But Brahms was different, and Gould had a kind of love/hate relationship with the piano music by Brahms. On the one hand, he hated the Romantic grandeur and sweep, and the impressive virtuosity shown in the big sets of variations by Brahms – the Handel or Paganini Variations for example. But Gould liked the warm intimacy and restraint in the late Brahms piano music. He once said that his playing of these late pieces was, “as if I was playing for myself, but left the door open.”
Gould recorded ten of the late Intermezzos by Brahms in the fall of 1960 in New York City. Then he returned to Brahms in 1982, after his 2nd recording of the Goldberg Variations by Bach just months before he died. This time, he recorded the four Ballades and the two Rhapsodies by Brahms, and the recording was released shortly after his death.
Brahms didn’t write much programmatic music – music that tells a story or follows a narrative. But one of the rare exceptions is the Ballade No. 1. It carries the subtitle, Edward – referring to an ancient Scottish legend concerning a Scottish nobleman who is questioned by his mother about the blood on his sword. At first, he tosses it of as the blood of his hawk, and then his old horse. Eventually, he admits that he has killed his father. Edward will now turn to a fate of sailing the seas, but not before he curses his mother for her involvement in the murder.
Gould takes the first Ballade very slowly – some 40% slower than most recordings of it. But this slow tempo gives the piece a tragic, bleak and desolate mood. No one captures the tragedy of this Ballade quite like Gould. Again, his sense of pace and flow is wonderful, with everything linked, despite the dirge-like tempo. There’s the use of the piano here almost like a one-man orchestra. There are a variety of colours and shades to the piano tone and once again, Gould focuses on one of his loves – the contrapuntal aspects of the music – the relationships between the musical lines. When the opening idea returns at the end, Brahms accompanies it with figures that suggest the dripping of blood. Gould creates a magical but eerie and tragic effect.
I’ll turn now to Gould’s first recording of music by Brahms, from 1960 – the 10 late Intermezzos. These late Brahms piano pieces are often described as autumnal and bittersweet. Gould himself described his playing of them as “sexy.” He probably meant that they were Romantic, emotional and impulsive. Many pianists milk these Intermezzos for all they’re worth and I think what I love about Gould’s recording of them is the lack of sentimentality. They’re somehow Romantic without being sentimental. By stripping away at Romantic excesses, Gould once again, allowed the music to speak for itself, and it works wonderfully. Notice the rhythmic sense, the pacing, and phrasing or shaping, as well as the marvelous restlessness in the middle section. All this from a pianist who some described as mechanical and unemotional, but in reality was one of the great Brahms pianists.
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