Re: GG's "Appassionata"

[nvalle@haverford.edu (Captain Nemo)]

>If you can access a copy of one of the Sony Videos (The Glenn Gould
>Collection, XV, "An Art of the Fugue"), listen to what he says to B.
>Monsaingeon about Beethoven's Middle Period, which includes the Violin
>Concerto and Emperor Concerto. He is outspokenly critical about the
>latter, and rightfully so. When he plays a really "dull" (GG's own words)
>set of modulating chords, you can see that his point is well-taken. The
>"Appassionata" is a work from this period, and Gould's playing of it
>projects his own feelings about B. and the composer's attitudes about
>his "infallibility." GG wants the rest of us to put aside our lofty
>regard and listen to what B. "get's away with" in his Middle Period. (GG
>admired the master's First and Last Periods the most.)

        As I own the collection, I am familiar with the interview.  There
are several more essays regarding Beethoven which you (and the rest of f
minor) may find interesting.  For general reading you might consider his
interview with himself in Tim Page's book _The Glenn Gould Reader_ in the
chapter "Glenn Gould interviews himself about Beethoven," (a very succinct
title, I know).  The following chapter (Beethoven's Pathetique, Moonlight,
and Appassionata Sonatas), goes into further detail about his dislike for
the sonata.
                Cheers,
                        Nemesio

Captain Nemo

Haverford College
370 Lancaster Ave.
Haverford, PA 19041

Phone:  (610) 896-1680

nvalle@haverford.edu

        I go out into the hall to knock in a nail.  On my way there, I
decide I would rather go out.  I obey the impulse, get into a train, come
to a railway station, go on travelling and finally end up - in America!
That is modulation!
                                         Anton Webern, from "Towards New Music"

"The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of
adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of
a state of wonder serenity."
                                        Glenn Gould