Re: GG and Mozart...Rubsam and Bach...GG Goldbergs

[Kristen Immoor <kimmoor@mindspring.com>]

At 11:45 AM -0400 9/5/97, Bradley P Lehman wrote:

>And a few opinionated comments on this:
[snip]
> The 81 is, in my opinion, almost a disaster.
>Sure, GG is shooting for intellectual unity through rethinking some of his
>tempos and transitions, and he projects interest at lots of levels at
>once.  BUT the joy of living is gone, sort of as it is also gone in his
>really scary Brahms g-minor Ballade (but it *works* for that piece).  GG
>let his mind take over, shoving away positive emotions and body.  This is
>not an improvement, in my opinion.  I think GG was a better musician when
>he played more by natural instinct, by his innate musicality.  By 81 he
>was so self-absorbed with trying to make a point, that his performance
>seems horribly one-sided: all intellect, no soul.  Impressive in its own
>way, but unsatisfying.

    Ah, but I never said it was an improvement, just a wonderful bookend to
a career that went from the fire of the 55's to the drama (melodrama?) of
the 81's. Personally, I enjoyed the second GBerg's a lot more once I heard
Gould's interview with Tim Page in which he dissects the second recording
rather thoroughly and explains his rethinking of the piece. The lumbering
quality of the work made more sense once I heard his reasoning behind it. I
don't know if I necessarily prefer it to his original effort, but I can
definitely understand the emphasis on the 'unity' in the interpretation and
I can see what he was going after. I do agree with you that it tends to
paint a tragic psychological portrait of Gould at that point in his life;
it really demonstrates the clutching grip he held on the music, the way he
slowly threaded out one line at a time, like fishing lines of silk being
lowered into inky water. I don't know if it's completely uptight on his
part, it might just be very mellow - I can't decide. In any case, I don't
think it's a disaster by any means, I have a hard time classifying anything
as disasterous unless it's really a waste of soundwaves. To me it's just
another interpretation, another way of seeing, and it tells me a little bit
more about what he was going through that year. (Gawd, I feel like such a
hippie!)

Best regards,
Kristen "Moonbeam" Immoor

______________________________________________________________________________

"There must be room for mess, for vulgarity. Sometimes, we have to touch
people."

                                  -- Bruce Charlton, writing as Glenn Gould