portrait in Great Pianists

[Jim Morrison <jim_morrison@sprynet.com>]

Hello Fminor,


In the liner notes to the Philips Great Pianists Glenn Gould set, there's a
photo of Gould, chin in hand, which shows behind him the portrait of a
bearded man.   There's also a bust of a man who could be Bach, and another
portrait at Gould's feet.

Anyone out there know for certain who that bust and those portraits are of?

Also, a few week ago I remember a short discussion about the relative
shortness of many of Sony's Gould discs.  Well, the Philips people are as
generous as a record company can be.  The double disc set of Gould comes in
at 157 minutes.  Every one of the ten or so sets I've purchased have all
been just as full.  So far the record goes to Richter's Third edition, which
contains Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto (lovely first movement), some
of his Preludes, some Scriabin, and 80 minutes of Schumann.  That double
disc set comes in at a little OVER 160 minutes, for all you keeping track of
such things, disc on is almost 80 minutes long, and disc two is almost 81.
At 20 bucks for a new set of any in the series, or 12 if you can find them
used at Tower, they really are a bargain.

And now for something unrelated.

If there's anyone else out there like me, almost a total non-musician, who's
had trouble hanging with the Art of Fugue (though individual contrapuncti we
find moving) I suggest doing something similar to what I just did.  Lay off
the Gould and listen to almost nothing but fiery romantics for two weeks,
that is, Horowitz and Richter and Rachmaninov playing Scriabin, Rachmaninov
and Schumann, and then turn in the evening to the Art of Fugue.   I suspect
you'll be moved by the piece in ways you've never been before.  The poise
and grace of the music will sound more refined and the joy of the more
livelier sections will also become more apparent.  It will be sort of like
going home again and finding it better than you remembered.  The version I
listened to was Robert Hill's exceptional Hanssler edition recording.
Thanks for the recommendation, Bradley.   Why didn't you tell me he was
playing on one of his brother's harpsichords?  Has Keith ever made a thin
sounding harpsichord?

Anybody else know of significant recordings in the Hanssler edition of all
of Bach's works?  I think the total number of CDs in the set is around 170,
so there's a lot to choose from.  I imagine close to half of that is taken
up by the Cantatas.



Bye

Jim

PS:  Yes I have asked a lot of question hoping to generate some more action
on this list, which has been too quiet lately.