Replies to some recent postings

[jv <bardolph@home.com>]

Bundled replies to avoid clogging the list unnecessarily....

Elmer:  Did Liszt REALLY slice through the tendons connecting his
fingers??  My god!!  Could he still play after that?

	The Steinway rep hand-shaking incident:  It seems to me incredible that
someone who worked for STEINWAY would ever shake a musician's hand in
this manner; has this story ever been confirmed, or did it just happen
in GG's imagination?

Anne Smith, Bradley Lehman:  Toscanini, Keith Jarrett - yeah, who else
hums when they shouldn't?  Suddenly I'm keen to know.  The Jarrett case
is different as he is playing his own original compositions (or
improvisations as the case may be) so he can hum if he feels like it,
and I'd probably remove it for my own personal use if I could, but I
certainly wouldn't expect his record company to do so; but I've never
heard Jarrett's classical recordings - does he hum on those as well?  In
that case I'd have the same objection as to GG, on the same grounds.

Paul Johnson: 
>since i am writing to f-minor...i might as 
>well say something about gould. um, what 
>to say? er, what about that humming? :-)

Well, tell us whose side you're on then, dad blast it!  If Sony came out
with de-hummed Gould recordings, would you lay down cold hard cash for
them?
 

Sean Nicholson:
>Here is Glenn "on the record" regarding the alteration of his recordings. 
> From "GG Interviews GG About GG" (by GG!) 
>http://www.gould.nlc-bnc.ca/docs/ehf.htm]:

> g.g. : And you're prepared to have similar 
> unauthorised permutations practised on your 
> own recorded output by listener or listeners
> unknown?

> G. G. : I should have failed in my purpose otherwise.

___

>I think one needs to make a distinction between the end listener "altering" 
>as he desires, and the record-releasing party doing any such altering.  I 
>don't think Sony is justified in changing Gould's recordings in any way, at 
>least as long as the artist is not around to give the go-ahead; its role 
>(now) is to distribute, not to "audit".  What the last component of the 
>chain does, the listener, does not have the effect of changing the material 
>for anyone but himself.  The two issues need to be judged separately....

Valid point.  But if the listener doesn't have the means to alter the
recordings to his liking, and the record company DOES, and a sufficient
number of listers want the same alterations made, would not the record
company simply be acting on behalf of the listers in making said
alterations?  Remember, Sony acknowledges that the number of Gould fans
requesting de-hummed editions is enough that they may consider it in the
future (personal email communication to me by
annette_rudel@sonymusic.com).

Bardolph