RE: [F_minor] What has f_minor been to you?

["Houpt, Fred" <fred.houpt@rbc.com>]

First off, bravo and kudos to Mary Jo.  Bringing together a complex set
of humans whose one sole source of common grounds are the artistic
output of one of the most creative minds to make music, write essays and
craft radio documentaries in the 20'th century is one heck of an
accomplishment.

GG is a lot like a lightning rod; he draws much energy and creates
sparks when it comes to how we feel about his art.  I'm sure that much
the same can be said about the legion of diehard fans of Vladimir
Horowitz who could pack concert halls to standing room only up to his
final days as a performer.  

With GG, in my view, we have one of the highest and most developed
musical intellects since Beethoven.  I say this because in GG's art, in
his perception you can see how he considered music from so many points
of view, searching with such a laser like, curious and brilliant mind.
The legacy of this deep musical research is that GG re-created the
pieces as if they had been heard for the very first time.  There is a
freshness and uniqueness to almost every single recording, even the
infamous Mozart Sonatas!  We are forced by his presentation to
re-examine all the previously held conceptions we (might) have held
about the piece, pulling back a few steps further, looking at it from a
perspective we would not have chanced upon if left to our own devices.
When we finally get what GG was pointing at, whether it is the way a
musical line is woven with the counterpoint or where a theme was
normally played in a sublimated way and now he is holding it up for your
ears to lock onto without distortion, we have our minds lit up and the
magic of hearing the piece for the first time has taken us to a new
level of joy, providing an inner vision that maybe only the composer had
conceived of.  

We consider GG's triumphs and wonder how the world could have been
normal without them?  Consider a world WITHOUT either recordings of the
Goldberg's?  Impossible.  The first recording that of a dashing young
artist taking a virtually unknown parlor piece and showing us that it
was akin to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, full of variety, spices,
laments, abundant joys.  The second recording is arguably the most
religious exposition GG ever recorded.  It captures the heart of Bach
the devout Lutheran Christian in his most private but profound state.
Gone were the whirling dervishes of spell binding flashes of Warp Factor
6 speed and in it's place the shimmering essence of purest creative
intelligence.  How could the world have been the same without this man
to teach us all this?  

I consider his recordings of English Renaissance music to be of
unmatchable beauty, simplicity, elegance.  One comes away sure of how
the spirit was lifted, how the feet danced in the era of Byrd and
Tallis.  Consider that William Byrd lived 1540-1623 and Captain John
Smith lived 1580-1631 and we have an idea of what music Pocahontas would
have heard when presented to the Royal Court in London.  This is what GG
has given us.  He ties together realities that usually exist in dry
history books.  We come away knowing these realities as if we were
living them now.

For me GG excelled in the insights discovered in smaller pieces,
especially Brahms and Beethoven.  I have yet to hear anyone play Brahms'
Rhapsodies with more tenderness and love.  I challenge anyone to present
a more spiritually transcendental assessment of Beethoven's Bagatelles
than GG's.  

There are so many treasures I return to in GG and because his output was
fairly large I hear things sometimes for the umpteenth time and yet
there is some new fresh idea. I consider his radio documentaries to be
the visionary and very avante guard side of his brilliance.  He took
great risks in some of his interpretations and was known to be
intellectually brutal to those composers he held in low esteem.  His
Chopin is shocking but hard to say is ugly or wrong.  His tempos in some
concertos are laughable but still we come away wondering what is going
on and maybe there is a distorted point being made here?

I enjoy posting from time to time and discussing, even heatedly, our
thoughts about what GG has said in a performance. There are no absolute
answers in music and so we have the freedom to explore, as GG did, what
it all means to us.  I look forward, when I have more time, exchanging
more discourse about a recording I have or some delight on YouTube.
Long may this list live and thrive.

Cheers and happy upcoming holiday's to all.

Fred Houpt
Toronto (home of GG), Ontario

[snip]
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