Glenn Gould

[TommyRude]

I had never heard of Glen Gould - thanks to El Lobo in the keyboard height for standing thread. So as not to derail that thread, posting this. The video has all kinds of great stuff. The amazingly clear and understandable opening discussion by Bernstein about dynamics, the crazy and many would say terrible posture by Gould, the emoting with his mouth during the performance.

 

And a move he makes - mostly with his left hand - where it jumps high off the keys, to emphasize staccato moments. The hand jumping high is visually dramatic - and it reminded me of something in golf. In golf, there are a huge amount of variations in the golf swing. All kinds of crazy contortions, many that happen after the ball has left the club face. Many folks say it doesn't matter what happens after the ball has left, but the crazy contortions after the ball have left are completely influenced by what came before. So with Gould - the hand jumping high is influenced by the staccato attack he's putting into the performance? Or is it just for show? Maybe a little of both :-)

 

[video:youtube]

[Threadslayer]

In golf, there are a huge amount of variations in the golf swing. All kinds of crazy contortions, many that happen after the ball has left the club face. Many folks say it doesn't matter what happens after the ball has left, but the crazy contortions after the ball have left are completely influenced by what came before.

Pioneered by Arnold Palmer.

[Mykhailo]

Haha, he"s a national icon up here. Here is my fav, his late period re-recording of the Goldberg variations:

 

[video:youtube]

 

 

 

I had never heard of Glen Gould - thanks to El Lobo in the keyboard height for standing thread. So as not to derail that thread, posting this. The video has all kinds of great stuff. The amazingly clear and understandable opening discussion by Bernstein about dynamics, the crazy and many would say terrible posture by Gould, the emoting with his mouth during the performance.

 

And a move he makes - mostly with his left hand - where it jumps high off the keys, to emphasize staccato moments. The hand jumping high is visually dramatic - and it reminded me of something in golf. In golf, there are a huge amount of variations in the golf swing. All kinds of crazy contortions, many that happen after the ball has left the club face. Many folks say it doesn't matter what happens after the ball has left, but the crazy contortions after the ball have left are completely influenced by what came before. So with Gould - the hand jumping high is influenced by the staccato attack he's putting into the performance? Or is it just for show? Maybe a little of both :-)

 

[video:youtube]

[BbAltered]

Amazing - Bernstein and Gould. We truly live in a golden age when we can - at the push of a button - have Bernstein and Gould in our living rooms, explaining and demonstrating the music.

 

I am reminded that Bill Evans studied Bach extensively. A lot of the 10th - 7th shell voicings Evans popularized in his playing can be found in Bach Chorales - written 300 years ago.

 

Another reason why I find the endless discussions of "best digital keyboard" here so meaningless: my listening and practicing are the greatest determinant of how the instrument sounds.

 

I got to go practice some more.....

[Outkaster]

Glenn was doing things that were kind of unconventional in his approach. I think people loved to hate on him according to a couple of piano instructors I had. People would say his technique and posture was way off but It wasn't for show. You can see him singing melodies as he is playing them. He knew the style and was kind of obsessed with getting perfect performances I also heard. Just to memorize that is pretty amazing if you think of it. He played notes staccato that other pianists wouldn't. This guy was on another level.

[ElmerJFudd]

A head for Bach like few others that have traversed the universe. I"ve listened endlessly to his masterful articulation and ability to bring out melodies buried in inner voices of these dense compositional masterpieces.

[Outkaster]

Yeah there was no one really like him.

[uhoh7]

This is interesting:

 

"At the age of 10, he began attending the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto (known until 1947 as the Toronto Conservatory of Music). He studied music theory with Leo Smith, the organ with Frederick C. Silvester, and piano with Alberto Guerrero. Around the same time, he injured his back as a result of a fall from a boat ramp on the shore of Lake Simcoe. This incident is almost certainly related to the adjustable-height chair his father made shortly thereafter. Gould's mother would urge the young Gould to sit up straight at the keyboard. He used this famous chair for the rest of his life and took it with him almost everywhere. The chair was designed so that Gould could sit very low at the keyboard, and allowed him to pull down on the keys rather than striking them from above, a central technical idea of his teacher at the Conservatory, Alberto Guerrero."

 

"Gould developed a technique that enabled him to choose a very fast tempo while retaining the "separateness" and clarity of each note. His extremely low position at the instrument permitted him more control over the keyboard. Gould showed considerable technical skill in performing and recording a wide repertoire including virtuosic and romantic works, such as his own arrangement of Ravel's La valse, and Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. Gould worked from a young age with Guerrero on a technique known as finger-tapping: a method of training the fingers to act more independently from the arm.

 

Wikipedia

 

Why the low position gave him more control I'm not sure, and "finger-tapping" is today something which only occurs when there is no alternative (in most modern methods).

 

Also I guess Gould had no time for List or Chopin. Bach and Beethoven his main heros. Remember Bach was out of favor quite a while, before roaring back to his dominant position today.

 

"George Szell, who led Gould in 1957 with the Cleveland Orchestra, remarked to his assistant, "That nut's a genius." Leonard Bernstein said, "There is nobody quite like him, and I just love playing with him." Bernstein created a stir at the concert of April 6, 1962 when, just before the New York Philharmonic was to perform the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor with Gould as soloist, he informed the audience that he was assuming no responsibility for what they were about to hear. He asked the audience: "In a concerto, who is the boss â the soloist or the conductor?", to which the audience laughed. "The answer is, of course, sometimes the one and sometimes the other, depending on the people involved. Specifically, Bernstein was referring to their rehearsals, with Gould's insistence that the entire first movement be played at half the indicated tempo."

 

This last extremely interesting in context of the current "whole beat" controversy, where the time signature meanings of Beethoven are in hot dispute today.

 

"Gould was convinced that the institution of the public concert was not only an anachronism, but also a "force of evil", leading to his retirement from concert performance. He argued that public performance devolved into a sort of competition, with a non-empathetic audience (musically and otherwise) mostly attendant to the possibility of the performer erring or not meeting critical expectation."

 

List also gave up live performance, and it was felt by many in the 19th century that live performance had devolved to essentially a circus, where phenoms raced through pieces at impossible speeds to great aclaim, with no thought of the composer's intent----that really was not "a thing" untill later.

 

The user "AuthenticSound" has a great YT channel all about the time sig thing.

[MuzikTeechur]

I was hired for a wedding. For Prelude music, they wanted me to "play the Goldberg Variations."

 

"Yeah. OK. I'll get right on that. You're getting married in 2050, right?"

 

I don't think they really understood that there are varying degrees of "Piano player."

[ElmerJFudd]

"May 7, 1957 in the Bolshoi Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. Gould was just kicking off his tour of Russia, the first time he"d ever been overseas to perform. In the midst of the hottest period in the Cold War, Gould was the first ever pianist to perform in Russia since 1945. The sparse numbers of the crowd there weren"t sure what to expect, nor quite did he. None of them knew that in the course of the next two weeks". Word of Glenn's artistry got out, a sparsely attended first set becomes a full house for the second. They loved him. His command of the instrument, of his nerves, the flawless execution, unexpected interpretation.

 

[video:youtube]

[ElmerJFudd]

18:02 into this video Gould Comes in - US television debut. He's awesome.

 

[video:youtube]

[MAJUSCULE]

Like Mike said, he's a national treasure up here, hard to learn piano without hearing about him. A singular talent.

[MAJUSCULE]

(Two ns, by the way. Glenn.)

[CEB]

Critics would slam him for his creative interpretation of Bach. In his defense he only did this with the minor (small) works. Major works like Partitas and Concertos Gould attempted to be very true to Bach"s original intents. Fugues, Preludes, dance pieces he could be very creative.

 

He is probably not my favorite interpreter of JS Bach but I like him a lot and respect him.

 

Bach himself was supposed to be one hell of an improviser.

[El Lobo]

So with Gould - the hand jumping high is influenced by the staccato attack he's putting into the performance? Or is it just for show? Maybe a little of both :-)

I think Gould was decidedly not interested in show.

[El Lobo]

he injured his back as a result of a fall from a boat ramp on the shore of Lake Simcoe.

Off topic, but I was intrigued to read this. I spent most of my summers up through age 16 on Snake Island and De Grassi Point on Lake Simcoe.

[TommyRude]

(Two ns, by the way. Glenn.)

Fixed! (in my OP, not sure if that will flow through)

[Mykhailo]

he injured his back as a result of a fall from a boat ramp on the shore of Lake Simcoe.

Off topic, but I was intrigued to read this. I spent most of my summers up through age 16 on Snake Island and De Grassi Point on Lake Simcoe.

My family's cottage is at Willow Beach near Jackson's Point! Killer perch fishing! When the first lockdown took place, I took refuge there from March-May. Two kids and a Yamaha P200!

[MathOfInsects]

I have my Music History students watch his complete Well-Tempered Clavier performance in our Bach section. His ability to find emotion in those cerebral intertwining thought-experiments is about as stark an example as you can find that music is a thing in us, not the thing on the page--regardless of how fertile the mind is that dotted that page.

[marino]

I was hired for a wedding. For Prelude music, they wanted me to "play the Goldberg Variations."

"Yeah. OK. I'll get right on that. You're getting married in 2050, right?"

I don't think they really understood that there are varying degrees of "Piano player."

 

Ha ha, that happened to me too. But then I realized that I could get away with playing just the Aria. I also included *one* Variation as a bonus.

 

Btw I think that every pianist, or music lover for that matter, has a kind of shock the first time he's exposed to Gould. My personal Gould obsession lasted several years... I have pratically every recording he's ever made, and I have read everything written by him or about him. One of those superhuman talents, really humbling for "normal" musicians.

[Mykhailo]

This National Film Board of Canada clip was filmed at his cottage at Lake Simcoe:

 

[video:youtube]

[El Lobo]

he injured his back as a result of a fall from a boat ramp on the shore of Lake Simcoe.

Off topic, but I was intrigued to read this. I spent most of my summers up through age 16 on Snake Island and De Grassi Point on Lake Simcoe.

My family's cottage is at Willow Beach near Jackson's Point! Killer perch fishing!

And bass fishing too. I know Jackson's Point. I'm sure it was much smaller ... uh ... 60 years ago. My paternal grandparents had a place on Snake Island and my mother's family (huge Walker clan) owned De Grassi Point. Our launch place from the mainland was at Island Grove. Every once in while, we'd drive into Sutton for the main grocery and supplies shopping. When I was 15, I saw a band playing at a teen club, might have been in Jackson's Point. I saw the sax player up on the bandstand as we walked in and he looked so cool. I wanted to be that guy. A couple of years later and I was that guy. I've been gigging off and on since I was 17.

[Mykhailo]

PM me if you ever are back! I"ll set up a gig in Sutton, or Jackson"s point and get you up! I have a few classic r n b bands that I book there from time to time, plus I have an organ trio and a piano trio. The Briars, Mansion House, Keswick Arms, lot"s of places. My uncle hosts a massive jam on snake island. They barge the gear over, good times. My main band, Blue Rodeo, plays Sunderland arena every year.

 

 

p.s. Amazing bass fishing...made the mistake of trying to eat one last year. Good fight, horrible taste, not like the perch!

[El Lobo]

PM me if you ever are back! I"ll set up a gig in Sutton, or Jackson"s point and get you up! I have a few classic r n b bands that I book there from time to time, plus I have an organ trio and a piano trio. The Briars, Mansion House, Keswick Arms, lot"s of places. My uncle hosts a massive jam on snake island. They barge the gear over, good times. My main band, Blue Rodeo, plays Sunderland arena every year.

 

 

p.s. Amazing bass fishing...made the mistake of trying to eat one last year. Good fight, horrible taste, not like the perch!

Wow. Well, it's unlikely I'll get back there in the foreseeable future, but thanks for the invitation. A jam on Snake Island would be a total mind ... uh ... twister, the crossing of many paths. And yeah, about the bass fishing -- I used to catch 'em, never ate 'em. I don't like bony fish.

[TommyRude]

PM me if you ever are back! I"ll set up a gig in Sutton, or Jackson"s point and get you up! I have a few classic r n b bands that I book there from time to time, plus I have an organ trio and a piano trio. The Briars, Mansion House, Keswick Arms, lot"s of places. My uncle hosts a massive jam on snake island. They barge the gear over, good times. My main band, Blue Rodeo, plays Sunderland arena every year.

 

 

p.s. Amazing bass fishing...made the mistake of trying to eat one last year. Good fight, horrible taste, not like the perch!

Wow. Well, it's unlikely I'll get back there in the foreseeable future, but thanks for the invitation. A jam on Snake Island would be a total mind ... uh ... twister, the crossing of many paths. And yeah, about the bass fishing -- I used to catch 'em, never ate 'em. I don't like bony fish.

Keyboards and fishing - now there's a pair I can get behind! I go fishing all the time here in the Bay Area - for salmon, halibut, rockfish, dungeness crab - - all VERY tasty!

[ElmerJFudd]

And beer!

[Doc Tonewheel]

The main thing I like about Gould was that his unconventional and somewhat controversial style showed the world that there is an indescribably amazing universe in Bach's music. Bach is my favorite composer of all time. His music has such depth, amazing harmonies and dissonances that it is easy to see how he inspired so many jazz players. I always been curious about what Bach could have done with all the technology available today considering that the clavichord and harpsichord had rather limited dynamic ranges compared with the modern grand piano and sound generating capabilities of other keyboards. I love playing Bach's music. I learn so much both in terms of improving my technical skills and learning about harmony. The WTC is something you can study for your entire life and still learn something new. If Gould was on another plane, it was because Bach was the architect of that universe.

[MathOfInsects]

The WTC is something you can study for your entire life and still learn something new. If Gould was on another plane, it was because Bach was the architect of that universe.

 

This was the first segment I read. Once you read 'WTC' as 'World Trade Center,' 'plane' and 'architect' take on whole new and confusing meanings.

[Outkaster]

This is interesting:

 

"At the age of 10, he began attending the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto (known until 1947 as the Toronto Conservatory of Music). He studied music theory with Leo Smith, the organ with Frederick C. Silvester, and piano with Alberto Guerrero. Around the same time, he injured his back as a result of a fall from a boat ramp on the shore of Lake Simcoe. This incident is almost certainly related to the adjustable-height chair his father made shortly thereafter. Gould's mother would urge the young Gould to sit up straight at the keyboard. He used this famous chair for the rest of his life and took it with him almost everywhere. The chair was designed so that Gould could sit very low at the keyboard, and allowed him to pull down on the keys rather than striking them from above, a central technical idea of his teacher at the Conservatory, Alberto Guerrero."

 

"Gould developed a technique that enabled him to choose a very fast tempo while retaining the "separateness" and clarity of each note. His extremely low position at the instrument permitted him more control over the keyboard. Gould showed considerable technical skill in performing and recording a wide repertoire including virtuosic and romantic works, such as his own arrangement of Ravel's La valse, and Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. Gould worked from a young age with Guerrero on a technique known as finger-tapping: a method of training the fingers to act more independently from the arm.

 

Wikipedia

 

Why the low position gave him more control I'm not sure, and "finger-tapping" is today something which only occurs when there is no alternative (in most modern methods).

 

Also I guess Gould had no time for List or Chopin. Bach and Beethoven his main heros. Remember Bach was out of favor quite a while, before roaring back to his dominant position today.

 

"George Szell, who led Gould in 1957 with the Cleveland Orchestra, remarked to his assistant, "That nut's a genius." Leonard Bernstein said, "There is nobody quite like him, and I just love playing with him." Bernstein created a stir at the concert of April 6, 1962 when, just before the New York Philharmonic was to perform the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor with Gould as soloist, he informed the audience that he was assuming no responsibility for what they were about to hear. He asked the audience: "In a concerto, who is the boss â the soloist or the conductor?", to which the audience laughed. "The answer is, of course, sometimes the one and sometimes the other, depending on the people involved. Specifically, Bernstein was referring to their rehearsals, with Gould's insistence that the entire first movement be played at half the indicated tempo."

 

This last extremely interesting in context of the current "whole beat" controversy, where the time signature meanings of Beethoven are in hot dispute today.

 

"Gould was convinced that the institution of the public concert was not only an anachronism, but also a "force of evil", leading to his retirement from concert performance. He argued that public performance devolved into a sort of competition, with a non-empathetic audience (musically and otherwise) mostly attendant to the possibility of the performer erring or not meeting critical expectation."

 

List also gave up live performance, and it was felt by many in the 19th century that live performance had devolved to essentially a circus, where phenoms raced through pieces at impossible speeds to great aclaim, with no thought of the composer's intent----that really was not "a thing" untill later.

 

The user "AuthenticSound" has a great YT channel all about the time sig thing.

 

I have heard that a couple times that he didn't like Chopin or Franz Liszt.

[Doc Tonewheel]

Here's a great example of Glenn Gould's talent in interpreting Bach (I think Rosalyn Tureck is the other master) where you can hear all the individual notes and harmonies which really showcase this piece.

 

 

Many people play the Prelude in C Minor as fast as they possibly can (if you look at the Schirmer music for this it gives a tempo of something like 144). I think that it loses something if played too fast.