Re: GG plays Byrd & Gibbons

[Melissa M Stewart <stewartm@acsu.buffalo.edu>]

On Sun, 19 Jan 1997, Alan wrote:

> How  does the GG/Gibbons SOUND***?

Well, I'll succumb to temptation and unlurk here. The original LP of the
Gould Byrd and Gibbons was one of my favorite recordings in my younger
days, and I listened to it so often it became ingrained in my memory.
When the Gould Edition CD came out, I was overjoyed because I had just
recently lost the LP (this after some 25 years!) and I was fast wearing
out the tape copy I had made.

The salient feature of both the Byrd and Gibbons recordings, to my way of
thinking, is the the incredible clarity and independence of the voices.
One of my big interests as a theorist is performance practice, which I
take to mean: how the performance can best embody the intricacies of the
score.  I've never felt so certain that a performance was THE right one,
the way it should be, as I do when listening to those "piano
transcriptions" of early keyboard works.  I say that because we now place
so much emphasis on original instruments and try so hard to get a
"historically pure performance," but I've always felt that if Byrd and
Gibbons could hear Gould's rendition on that recording, they would say,
"That's how I heard it in my head."


Just my opinion, and we all know how common those can be.


Melissa Stewart
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|Melissa M. Stewart			    |  Graduate Student           |
|State University of New York at Buffalo    |  Potential Theorist         |
|stewartm@acsu.buffalo.edu		    |  Hockey Player              |
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