RE: GG: from my report: GG on Moog Synth.

[Paul Forman <pwog@gis.net>]

Please pardon me for jumping into this string and not adding any value, but
Roy's mention of Glenn Gould on the synthesizer caught my eye.

I collect Gould's recordings. I have most of his recordings on vinyl and
many CDs. I have been searching for a copy of "Glenn Gould on the Moog
Synthesizer" for years to no avail. I thought I caught a break when someone
told me I could write to Gould's estate and The CBC and get permission to
have it copied for me as long as I wasn't going to use it for commercial
gain. I am not and I wrote. I received a reply from Gould's estate saying
that although my request was reasonable, Sony Classical basically put a
policy in place that there would be no copies of musical works made available.

My hopes were dashed once again. So, I am appealing to anyone who might
have a copy of the recording and would be willing to barter for, or sell a
copy.

Thank you all for indulging my long winded appeal.

Warm Regards,
Paul



At 01:12 AM 7/28/97 -0500, R Johansen wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>I find it very peculiar that a man who coupled the Goldbergs (performed on
>the piano) with the 14 canons on the Goldberg theme performed on a
>_synthesizer_ can muster the courage to criticize anyone for
>"overestimat[ing] Bach's 'indifference about instruments'". Mr. Takahashi's
>recording was made in 1976, which was well before any decent-sounding
>synthesizer, and his synth work wasn't quite W. Carlos standard... It is
>awful! I occasionally listen to the recording for the same reason I still
>now and then dust off William Shatner's 'Mr. Tambourine Man' and Florence
>Foster Jenkins' rendition (rending? ;-) ) of the Queen of the Night Aria.
>English speakers are apparently too innocent, polite or dishonest to have a
>word like "Schadenfreude", but Germans (and we Scandinavians) seem to have
>a very real need for it ;-) It means something like "glee or merriment over
>other people's misfortune". I am itching to see posterity's judgment of the
>14 canons once this unfortunate fad has passed.
>
>Sarcasm and Schadenfreude aside: Thank you for sharing this review,
>Junichi! It got the old adrenaline flowing again, and it feels good! --And
>by all means, Junichi, include the review! The opininon of someone who has
>undertaken to play and record the Goldbergs must have some validity and
>deserves to be heard.
>
>
>Roy
>
>
>From Junichi's mail:
>
>...Many favorable reviews appeared for the "Glenn Gould Edition II" [the
>set including the video of the Goldberg Variations], but there was only a
>single review, though a skeptical one, which is worth reading:  a review by
>one of the leading composers in Japan, Yuji Takahashi (b. 1938).
>
>Takahashi says, "the approach of Glenn Gould's performance virtually
>finished appealing by 1970," and he regards it as a "self-oppressive
>stoicism of North American intelligentsia before the Vietnam War, who
>believed in technology."
>
>Gould's performance, according to Takahashi, achieved by excessive control
>at the sacrifice of physical mechanism, is the one where "every note on the
>score is visible": "a performance praised in North America in 1960's." 
>Even the re-recording of the *Goldberg Variations *, integrated by a single
>'pulse,' is a representation of the stoicism. It was a performance version
>of what American composers, such as Eliot Carter, had tried in their
>composition in 1950's: a composition which varies rhythmically, but the
>music itself is stative and homogeneous.  Moreover, Gould's controversial
>understanding of J. S. Bach's image that a composer who abandoned his
>self-indulgence and pursued stoic expression is "a projection of the
>Eastern American Puritanism." Gould overestimated Bach's "indifference
>about instruments" so much that he neglected the importance of timbre. 
>This is also a result of "self-oppressive stoicism." "After ten years or
>so, gourmets of music enjoy the 'sound' of Gould as a most musical
>interpretation, but that is a passing fad of retrospect missing
>1960's"(*On-Stage Shinbun*, January 27, 1995).
>
>Takahashi, a pupil of Xenakis, who studied and taught in the United States
>in 1960's, is also a distinguished pianist who tried performing and
>recording many of  Bach's keyboard music on the piano.  Takahashi's
>criticism against Gould's approach is a manifestation to dismiss
>"metaphysical" music-making which both Gould and Takahashi might have had
>in common.  Anyway, his opinion must be discussed not only in Japan, but
>also in North America and other areas in the world. (By the way, Takahashi
>is now seeking for non-homogeneous fingering on the keyboard to revive the
>character of each finger, which makes music a "physical" achievement.) . .
>
>