Re: Gould vs Horowitz / Brendel vs Gould

[Brad Kelman <Brad.Kelman@BAKERNET.COM>]

Someone else on this list was recently drawing an important distinction between
pianists whose work had equal resonance for "musicians" as "pianists", and those
pianists whose significance was overwhelmingly for "pianists" not "musicians". 

I am an admirer of Brendel's piano-playing; I have been listening to his
Beethoven sonatas and Diabelli Variations for years.

I think Brendel's comments are indicative of the dangers of a pianists' pianist
passing judgment on a musicians' pianist. Brendel has recorded the complete
Beethoven sonatas something like 3 or 4 times. I understand that he's about to
start, or is in the middle of, or has recently completed, another complete cycle
of the Mozart piano concertos. I'm sure it's all played very convincingly,
nothing being at "cross-angles" with the music. But it's just a bit boring,
isn't it? He just keeps playing the piano very well. In that regard he stands in
stark contrast to Gould, who was a profound, groud-breaking musician who used
his instrument as a means of communication, not as a end in itself.

For all their gifts, instrumentalists like Brendel will never send out the
intellectual and musical ripples of a Gould or a Richter. Gould and Richter were
altogether too strong to make the kinds of recordings that Brendel is content to
make. Possibly aware of this, or perhaps just plain narcissistic on an even less
tolerable level, the Brendels continue to pass comments like "within the limits,
structure etc.". It's all very obvious and more than a bit thick.

-----Original Message-----
From: Arne Klindt [mailto:a.klindt@GMX.NET]
Sent: Friday, 27 April 2001 18:08
To: F_MINOR@EMAIL.RUTGERS.EDU
Subject: Gould vs Horowitz / Brendel vs Gould


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Sarah Meneses was sad to find


>that
>most pianists contemporary to Gould, and some from older generations
>didn't mention him at all, or if they did, they had together with him a
>negative idea, like the way he moves or sings when playing.

Alfred Brendel says in a book of collected interviews /w Martin Meyer:

"To me Gould was the prime example of what an interpreting artist must not 
be; he was an eccentric doing everything possible to counteract the wishes 
or the character of the composer. There is innumerable evidence for this. 
Sometimes he did this by exposing one or two aspects of the piece while 
ignoring others."

"Glenn Gould made up his own rules - the word rules is not correct here I 
find. Obsessions were the guidelines along which he performed and which 
make his recordings seem so uniform in the way Gould treats the composers. 
I have attended concerts, I have listened to recordings."

"I have always asked myself: This man is so gifted, why does he mistreat 
composers so terribly? It seems to me that quite many people love this kind 
of sadism (...) You can play pieces in many different ways, but - if you 
please - within the limits, within the character and the structure of the 
piece itself. Gould crosses these limits voluntarily, or he does not notice 
them. Something inside him is at cross angles to the pieces he plays. 
Apparently this seems very attractive to many people. It makes me mad 
sometimes."

Taken from
"Alfred Brendel - Ausgerechnet ich"  [translates as: I of all people ;-)]
Carl Hanser Verlag, München Wien
ISBN 3-446-20001-0

Translation by me


Arne

</unlurk>