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Musikalisches Opfer: where is Glenn?
The other day I thought of Hofstadters
book "Gödel, Escher, Bach" and took the pleasure to revisit some parts.
I run through the story of old Bach arriving at the court of Friedrich II
and come to the take on canon and fugue.
Hofstadter starts with the word RICERCAR,
which stands for Regis Iussu Cantio Et Reliqua Canonica Arte Resoluta, on
King's order, melody and the rest dissolved by means of the art of the
canon, and which means in italian "seek", had in Bach's time still the
meaning of "fugue" (though the term fugue was more modern), and means also
as french "recherché" a higher level of refinement. So we talk about the
Musikalisches Opfer. And indeed, there are many things to seek and to find
as well in this piece. So I continue reading and recall something I was
fascinated of as a kid: one canon is titled "Quaerendo invenietis"
(Seek and ye shall find) which can even literally be translated in computer
language as "querying you invent".
Today I'm riding in the car and listen to the A-major of the English Suites.
Coming to the 6th movement "Double II" and becoming aware as so often of
these wonderful staccato played left hand lines I say to myself: this
playing prooves that Gould must have been able to follow multiple things
simultanously at a time, otherwise he couldn't have conceived- let alone
have played - the voices in such a profiled way.
(and remember the address to the conservatory
graduates, of which Ostwald didn't get the ambigous sense, produced by that
simultanouly thinking laudator).
And then all of a sudden it strikes me why is there no recording of the
Musikalisches Opfer, a piece that must have aroused Gould's playful mind
with lots of things going on at the same time.
And this is my question. Is there a recording of which I don't know? And if
not, did he talk about playing the piece? I think I read some lines about it
but can't recall where and when that was.
Jost