f h wrote:
I hope that the links will play for you. This is GG's entirely new
rendition of Ravel's "La Valse". I am blown away. GG has captured
the inner essence of this music much more ably than most orchestral versions.
Now, this is what I call good "shock and awe".
What do you all feel?
I won't speak for anybody else in the "shock and awe" you're hoping
they'll feel, but I like both of Leonard Pennario's recordings of
that piece better than Gould's. Abbey Simon's is excellent,
too. Better elegance and control of tone. Pennario's first one was
from 1954, and it even has better *sound* than this Gould TV
performance (which I have on the 1989 Nuova Era CD).
There's lots of flashy and fast finger-work, sure, and Gould was
great at that...but some of these other pianists sublimated those
notes even better into a colorful texture. I'm disappointed that
Gould didn't do a proper studio recording in better sound, beyond
this video show-off venture.
You can get the Sony CD of this Gould video at:
http://www.amazon.com/Glenn-Gould-Krenek-Webern-Debussy/dp/B0000028O5
Pennario's first one:
http://www.amazon.com/Leonard-Pennario-Early-Years-1950-1958/dp/B000JCEB1I
(but his stereo remake was even better)
Simon's:
http://www.amazon.com/Ravel-Complete-Music-Solo-Piano/dp/B000001K24
The composer's own published piano score is readily available here cheap:
http://www.amazon.com/Tombeau-Couperin-Other-Works-Piano/dp/048629806X
It has some extra lines above the staff showing what some of the
other orchestral instruments are doing in the original. Gould added
some of these optional notes back into his keyboard
interpretation...which isn't to say that Ravel's arrangement
necessarily *needed* such further elaboration!
Brad Lehman
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