On a side note, I once heard a tape of GG experimenting with a Beethoven
Piano Concerto - perhaps it was 1 or 2?....and he hired a young pianist
and an orchestra. So, he gets everyone in place and he says that he
fully knows that what he is about to ask them to do is completely
perverse and crazy but he wants to hear what it sounds like. They
proceed to play (I think) the first movement at a super ultra slow
tempo. The very familiar music was so altered that I just listened in
awe at how transformed it was. You know, as crazy as his experiment
was, the beauty of Beethoven's music survived the time-tunnel
experiment. It sounded as if the music was coming from another
dimension; that is what I recall. It was sort of a mind bending aural
experience. Whether GG wanted to achieve this or why it occurred to him
I do not know. The experiment was very interesting and I hope that some
of you can track it down and listen for yourself.
I am telling you this long story because it highlights the lengths GG
took to examine velocity. He was exploring, as usual, an effect in
performance that forces the music into extreme dimensions, thereby
revealing inner textures that our normal hearing/playing will not
reveal. How he sees into a piece is his genius. Sometimes, I guess, we
just have to take it on faith that he has something he is trying to show
us or even himself and a good look/listen will be worth the effort.
Fred Houpt
Toronto