GG: '55 Goldberg (+ all four GG recordings of Goldbergs)

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

Matthew Harding wrote:

>I am neither wise nor experienced, but I can promise you, the '55 GG
>Goldbergs will BLOW YOU AWAY.
>
>You see, most people came across GG through the '55 Goldbergs. His first
>commercial recording under Columbia (then CBS, now Sony), it fired up
>people's imaginations and was a truly unique recording. The 1981
>recording, by contrast, was a much more measured and contemplative
>recording. I don't know what harpsichord version you have, but I am
>prepared to predict that you will be amazed at how different the 1955
>recording sounds from ANYTHING you have ever heard. Keep in mind GG was
>22 when he released the first recording, you can really hear the arrogance
>and eternal confidence of youth issuing forth from that CD.


I agree with Matthew's assessment of these two; but Gould's 1959 (live in
Salzburg) recording of the Goldbergs is even better.  It has all the
virtues of the 1955 recording, plus the brinkmanship of a live event
(fantastic intensity and concentration, palpable excitement, also a great
serenity) and an even better flow from first note to last, an organic
unity.

Even if you already know the 1955 set, the 1959 will blow you away.  I'd
say it's one of the best 20th-century piano recordings of *any* repertoire
played by anyone, a pinnacle of piano performance.  (Not in terms of the
recorded sound, but of the superlatively controlled energy in the
performance.)

[The 1954 recording on CBC is pretty good, too, but not in the same league
with these two.]

Gould in 1959 was at the height of his natural musicality, which he then
chose to suppress in most of his Bach performances from the early 1970s
and later.  He replaced it with a rational/analytical approach, an
experimental "triumph" of clever thought over intuition and flow.  That
later Gould was a different artist, very interesting, but the change was
not necessarily an improvement.  The 1981 Goldbergs are more like the work
of a startlingly intense yet disembodied brain, and while that's
fascinating, there are some crucial things missing.  It's sort of a piece
about Glenn Gould projected through the notes (but not the usual content)
of the Goldberg Variations....

I like the distinction that has been made in this group earlier: those
first three Gould recordings of the Goldbergs (1954-55-59) are "Bach
played by Glenn Gould" while the 1981 is "Glenn Gould's
Bach"...essentially a different composition by a different genius.  In
1959 he took Bach's composition about as far as a piano performance can
take it, and then in 1981 he did something substantially different.

-----

A good harpsichord recording similar in spirit to Gould's 1955 is the one
by Pierre Hantai, 1992, on the Opus 111 label.  Hantai was 27 or 28 at the
time.


Bradley Lehman, Dayton VA
home: http://i.am/bpl  or  http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl
CD's: http://listen.to/bpl or http://www.mp3.com/bpl

"Music must cause fire to flare up from the spirit - and not only sparks
from the clavier...." - Alfred Cortot