Re: GG/KJ

[Richard Vallis <RVpiano@spec.net>]

Very well put.  But I can't imagine any perceptive listener EVER thinking of
GG as "cold and lifeless" or as anything but ultimately passionate.  As for
KJ ........

Ayako Hosono wrote:

> When I listened to Keith Jarrett after listening to GG.
>
> Sometimes comparing two interpretations makes you notice about things
> you thought you wouldn't notice.
>
> It was when I was discovering GG's music one after another, including
> WTC.  Then one day I had an opportunity to listen to Keith Jarrett
> playing Bach in a car.  I listened to it for a while and a friend asked
> me what i thought about it, so here is what I thought.
>
> I noticed that he was trying to do what GG was doinghaving control over
> many voices and giving them an individuality.  So that was same like
> GG.  As I kept listening, though, something was missing in his
> performance that GG had in his musica drama.  GG's music is sometimes
> accused of being mechanical or cold or lifeless, but when I heard KJ's
> performance, it was completely devoid of drama and quite superficial.
> GG had an amazing ability to give an individual life to each voice in
> music, particularly in fugues, and it was to the extent that each voice
> started to have something organic, appearing as a character in a drama.
> In this case GG was like a stage director, telling each actor what to
> do, where to stand on stage, how to speak in what volume _ he was quite
> theatrical, in a way. It could be also that each voice already had a
> charater as it was composed; GG simply listened to what each acter had
> to say, absorbed them, and transformed inside of him which came out as
> something quite unique.  And he was open to every character's opinion
> about his or her presentation.
>
> As every drama has a story _ beginning of a story, conflict in the
> middle, and somehow resolving this conflict in the end _ his fugues has
> this quality of drama, of life.
>
> I would not have noticed this quality if I didn't listen to KJ's WTC.
>
> 10 Feb 98