Re: Composers we like

[Tim Conway <timcon@COMSWEST.NET.AU>]

Anne Smith wrote:

>... Glenn Gould often said that his posture at the piano meant that he was
physically unable
>to do justice to the Romantic composers.

I know GG had an unusual posture at the piano, but do you know how it
prevented him from playing Romantic music, er, "properly", for want of a
better word? I only ask because of Charles Rosen's article, discussed on
this list a year or two ago, which stated that posture, fingering, etc
were entirely up to each individual player. In opposition to earlier
insistence by music teachers and the like that all players must sit just
so and must use exactly this or that fingering, Rosen seemed to say that
all that insistence was rubbish because we are all built differently.
Each player should adopt whatever seems most comfortable and natural.

If Rosen is right, and if GG adopted his unusual posture because it felt
best for him, wouldn't that make GG's unusual posture the best for
playing any type of music, not just Bach and Schoenberg?

Or was GG using posture as a (rather poor?) excuse for not playing music
he disliked (or didn't understand as well as he did other types of music)?


Tim Conway
Broome, WA, Oz