Doubtless Gould’s admirers will think very differently but
it’s been something of a dispiriting experience listening to his Brahms. He’d
apparently never even played through the Ballades until these, amongst his
final recordings, made in 1982 and which were released posthumously. I’ve
followed the somewhat confusing details in the notes for dating the
Intermezzi; for once in this series, usually impeccable, Sony has omitted
recording details.
The process of assimilation by which Gould came to learn the
Ballades is rehashed in the oh-so-whimsical Platonic dialogue constructed by
Michael Stegemann as his notes to this issue that partly derive from Gould’s
interviews and writings. Whether Gould had indeed internalised the Ballades is
a moot point but I’m afraid I shall have to pass over them quickly; they are
discursive, etiolated and distended, undifferentiated and fractured.
As for the Intermezzi, a grouping of ten, amongst which can
be found some of Brahms’ most overtly intimate music I have broadly similar
conclusions. The E flat major is very slow with no relaxation into the piu
adagio central section, ironing out contrast. The B flat minor is
directionless with muted dynamics and once more painfully and point-makingly
slow. I can’t locate any sense of con molto espressione as indicated
and the performance of this and other Intermezzi is the more astonishing in
the light of Gould’s reported comments on the "aristocracy" of his playing
here (unless he equated aristocracy with coldness and indifference). It’s true
that there are hints of a deeper Gould – the C sharp minor Op. 117/3 is a case
in point and he rises to something of a passionate climax in the E flat minor
but this is vitiated by a ponderous tempo. The E major from Op. 116 is not
especially slow but it doesn’t need to be when the sense of generic
facelessness is so pervasive. Clearly Gould sees the Op. 76 No 6 in A major
more in terms of con moto than Andante con moto as marked. Its
perversely hectic drive is to me mere point making abstruseness. He simply
doesn’t shape these pieces with any sense of conviction, instead reducing them
to opacity and formlessness. Count me out.
Jonathan Woolf