Re: GG: Images

["John P. Hill" <jphill@frank.mtsu.edu>]

Greetings to Alun and the Collective!

OK (gulp), I'm not here to defend Sony but....I just bought the
Images CD this past weekend and I like it a lot.  I like it because:

1.  The cost ($15.99 US here in Nashville) is very reasonalble
for a double-CD set.

2.  It's basically the GG sampler platter with a smattering of
nice stuff from the entire discography.  I find it makes a great
CD to have on while cooking or puttering about the house;  in
other words, for non-critical listening sessions.  It would also
make a nice gift for friends who are completely unfamiliar with
GG (yes, believe it not, there are some...).

3.  It's not exactly a coffee table picture book, but I enjoyed
seeing some pictures of the more casual, "off-the-record" Gould.
During his life, we just didn't see too much of that;  Columbia
insisted on showing us this rather dour, "I'm-a-classical-music-
icon-so-I-must-be-serious" version of GG all the time.  I agree
with (was it Lori or Kristen?) who commented that the photos of
T. Slutz, Klopweisser, et. al. now seem kind of charming.  People
who knew him have all said that the real-life GG had a good sense
of humor and that this was usually close to the surface.  Too much
of the documentary effort misses this, I think.

3.  I feel that the mastering on this disk is actually
very good!  *Finally*, we have some selections from the 50's
that actually sound like moderately well-recorded pianos.
I think that the mastering job on the Italian Concerto is
worth the price of admission by itself.  Gone is the
comb-filtered, tiny, tinny piano buried in a sea of white
noise, so common in previous versions.  Yes, the tone is a
bit darker, but in my book that's a small price to pay for
getting rid of all that dreadful tape noise.

BTW, GG himself acknowedges (in the Goldberg video) that the
introduction of Dolby type-A noise reduction (late 60s) to some
extent "invalidated" the earlier recordings.  Now (1997) we have
very powerful digital hard-disk editing systems with impressive
"de-noising" capabilities.  I'm glad Sony harnessed these new
technologies on the Images CDs.

jh


On Sun, 2 Mar 1997, Alun Severn wrote:

> Dear All,
> 
> An afternoon spent shopping for books with my youngest daughter; always a
> long but enjoyable job. And now, at 8.20pm, the WAM complete piano trios
> with Pressler (piano), Guilet (vln) and Greenhouse (cello), on a Philips
> Duo. Not *great* music but rather lovely, and, playing quietly on 'phones,
> a superbly realistic and intimate sound as I write this.
> 
> In HMV this afternoon I finally got to see the Gould two CD set IMAGES
> which Sony has now released in the UK through some special deal with HMV to
> give them exclusive rights. There's no doubt that at L12.99 it's excellent
> value -- I believe that originally it was retailing at around 30 dollars --
> but nonetheless disappointing. The much proclaimed "35 page booklet" is one
> of these dreadful little stapled-into-a-cardboard-packaging-sleeve affairs,
> a bodge of clever-clever typefaces and not very startling photos. The first
> disc -- "Bach" -- is a collection of very short extracts, of which I have
> the complete versions of everything except the Italian Conc. There's about
> 6/7 mins of that on this disc. The second disc -- "Non-Bach" -- is a
> similar collection of, er, non-Bach works: Scriabin, Gibbons, Brahms,
> Mozart, Haydn and so forth. No Scarlatti; a superb Gibbons, but taken from
> the "Consort of Musicke" disc which I bought recently. So, taken all in
> all, I decided to save my money.
> 
> The whole thing slips inside a pretty ordinary clear plastic wallet.
> Frankly, given that it has a "special collector's item" sticker on it, I
> thought it was pretty much a rip-off, and Sony went down another notch in
> my estimation. If they really wanted to provide eager, keen, loyal GG fans
> with a genuine collector's item, they could have done so much better.
> Anybody out there really *like* Images?
> 
> Best,  Alun
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> ALUN SEVERN        *  Snailmail              1 Chestnut Rd  Oldbury
>                                         W.Midlands  B68 0AX England
>                    *  Tel                      + 44 (0)121 422 9509
>                    *  Fax                      + 44 (0)121 643 0661
>                    *  Email                  alun@ukiah.demon.co.uk
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> "Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and
>                 entertainment without moral passion is television."
>                                                    - Rita Mae Brown
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
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