Re: landowska

[Jim Morrison <jim_morrison@sprynet.com>]

> Here are some especially good references about that surprising quietness,
> from the HPSCHD-L archives:


thanks for the links.
>
> Despite her use of a bizarre instrument and piano technique, her
> performances are (in my opinion) grippingly musical.  Really dramatic and
> committed.


certainly a very dramatic player, but also something I have trouble plugging
into, maybe I should listen to Gould's toccata to the 6th Partita and then
move onto Landowska just to smooth the transition a bit.

> Agreed that the 1959 GG is very well done.  Wonderful!

Bazzana thinks so as well, choosing it as his final example on the disc
included in his book on Glenn Gould. (I just got my copy; looks great.)

Bazzana says of the 59 IC, in a quote well worth the following length

"This is a performance that could certainly be used to exemplify many
aspects of the rational Gould--his idealists image of Bach; his clear,
controlled, analytical playing style; his obsession with counterpoint and
structure; his ability to clarify for the listener both the musical details
and the architecture of the whole; his special affinity, both aesthetically
and ethically, with the medium of recording.  Yet this is also a performance
of boundless energy and joy, a remarkable display of mental and digital
facility, a powerful rendering of the music's inherent tension and drama.
It is a thoughtful performance that repays analysis, yet it never seems
calculated; it seems all spontaneity and abandon.  We can, to be sure,
admire the musical thinker behind this interpretation, but we also do well
to notice that this is some of the most accomplished, compelling, and
entertaining piano playing on record."

That should give you some idea of where Bazzana stands, and a taste of his
prose as well.

He also has an interesting theory, that I haven't looked into yet, that
Gould's vision of Bach was filtered in a very determining/limiting way
through his understanding of Schoenberg.   Just what it means to see Bach
through Schoenberg's aesthtic I don't know, but I'll get back to you when I
do gain some comprehension.  Anybody on the list read the book?  I'm sure
some of you must have.

>His 1952 CBC
> broadcast version is also worth hearing.  The 1981 has good sound but the
> interpretation is, uh, unsatisfactory.

the 81 of interest to me to me because of the slow second movement which
lasts almost eight minutes, over two and a half minutes longer  than the
other recordings I'm familiar with.  the last movement places heavy stress
on the left hand and downplays the right, cutting down on the amount of
weave we hear in the 52/59, or anyone elses recording that I've heard for
that matter.
>
> And agreed on Tureck's playing of the slow movement (the 1979 one, Sony
> Essential Classics).

That's the recording, an inexpensive double disc set that includes Rosen's
version of the Art of Fugue.  A great buy.


Bye,


Jim