RE: [F_minor] Keith Jarrett's Goldberg Variations

[f h <boyboy_8@yahoo.com>]

Bob, 

your question about good/bad evokes the age old aesthetic discourse of which we know there are no absolutes and the discussion goes forever.  For a joke consider a bunch of hardy neanderthals (perhaps) working away by torch light, deep in a cave in Spain or France, say about 24000 years ago.  The artists drawing on the walls stop and admire each others work.  One of them remarks in his own way how much more realistic his antelope or zebra looks and for his comments he gets a lump of charcoal thrown at him by someone who took offense at the comment.  Three broken bones later the group straggles out of the cave heaving invective and threats.  The argument over who drew better or left more realistic outlines of hand prints went unresolved.  Are we that much above such a discussion?  

To your second point, frankly I am not sure that we can at this stage of the evolution of the modern grand somehow feel that the precursor instruments make a more sumptuous, supple, monstrous, gigantic, orchestral, emotive, transcendental sound.  I just don't think that the old creaky beasties had it in them to create.  We have evolved a better and much more robust instrument and for my tastes, all of the past including what Gould covered in the Renaissance, sounds so much better on a big grand.  

Gould's strength, in my view, is how many different lights he ignites in the imagination, how many unique shades that lay hidden in tempo or dynamics that was just waiting until his fingers revealed them?  The notes are always the same, more or less, between piano pounders, it's what remains in the mind and heart both during and after the event that counts most.  

Cheers,

Fred Houpt
Toronto

 


--- On Wed, 9/24/08, Robert Merkin <bobmerk@earthlink.net> wrote:

> From: Robert Merkin <bobmerk@earthlink.net>
> Subject: RE: [F_minor] Keith Jarrett's Goldberg Variations
> TProxy-Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0

3A F_MINOR@EMAIL.RUTGERS.EDU
> Date: Wednesday, September 24, 2008, 2:57 PM
> Yeah, Fred's and Brad's e-mails really highlight two
> questions: 
> 
> * Is a particular performance great, good, or neither, and 
> 
> * would anyone in our lifetimes be able to break through
> our unfamililarity
> with pre-piano keyboards and have fair aesthetic and
> emotional responses to
> anyone's harpsichord performance?
> 
> "Fair" meaning as compared to how prepared and
> willing we are to give a
> hearing to a piano performance of the same composition.
> 
> My wife noted that the first thing she thought of when the
> Jarrett
> recording began to play was Lurch playing the harpsichord
> in Morticia and
> Gomez' parlour. (I may be misremembering this, but I
> think Lurch hummed
> while he played.) Most of us have a lot of modern
> associations to free
> ourselves from before we can fairly listen to pre-piano
> performances. Like
> the retro use of black and white in a modern movie to
> subconsciously
> convince us we're in Olden Times, our ears often
> encounter harpsichords as
> a retro cliche to convince us we're in Olden Times.
> 
> Lucky are the few moderns whose training and listening
> offered lots of
> pre-piano experiences.
> 
> But what I can't shake myself out of is the knowledge
> that Bach and his
> contemporaries composed for the harpsichord, and in the
> composer's
> "ear-mind," the sound and mechanical
> characteristics of the harpsichord
> were what the composition was "supposed" to sound
> like and reflect.
> 
> So to a big extent, it's we and our accidental moment
> on the calendar that
> prejudice us against pre-piano keyboards. The harpsichord
> (clavier, spinet
> et al) was all the baroque composers knew; the piano is
> almost the only
> keyboard we know.
> 
> ===============
> Brad Lehman wrote: 
> 
> I'd say Jarrett's performance on that recording is
> above average, but 
> monochromatic. He plays it like an excellent musician
> (which he is) who 
> unfortunately doesn't understand the instrument's
> range of expressive 
> techniques.
> ===============
>  
> Maybe Brad could be coaxed to say a little more about the
> characteristics
> of the harpsichord he feels Jarrett wasn't able to
> access or produce.
> 
> Bob
> 
> Fred Houpt wrote:
> 
> > Subject: RE: [F_minor] Keith Jarrett's Goldberg
> Variations
> >
> > Hi there Bob. I must admit that my ears have been
> spoiled and corrupted
> > by the sounds of a modern grand piano.  The dynamic
> reach and depth
> > achieved even by an amateur clod still can produce
> more "oomph" and
> > expressive power than any harpsichord can.  Frankly I
> have always been
> > convinced that had Bach been alive to hear the roaring
> power of a
> > monster grand he would instantly take leave to compose
> and enjoy it as
> > we do.  He lived to hear the first pianos, from what
> I've read, but the
> > sound quality would have been very unsatisfying by our
> standards.  
> >
> > As a matter of fact, I have a question back for you
> and the group: has
> > anyone heard a recording done by any pianist on either
> an exact replica
> > or the original of those earliest of pianos? I cannot
> say that I recall
> > hearing what they sound like?  There are lots of
> people who have made
> > recordings on pianos from Mozart-Haydn-Beethoven's
> day and so we know
> > what they sound like.  But, from Bach's day? That
> I am curious about.
> >
> > As for Jarrett's Goldberg, have not heard it.  I
> have a recording of him
> > at home doing Handel stuff on a harpsichord and it is
> quite nice. 
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Fred Houpt
> > Toronto
> 
> 
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