GG: Switched Off Bach

[Mary Jo Watts <mwatts@rci.rutgers.edu>]

Another interesting LP I picked up this weekend is a novelty of sorts.
It's called _Switched Off Bach_ and has the same play-list as the
William Carlos Moog synth LP but the Inventions and the excerpts from
the WTC are GG's; the cantatas are performed by E. Power Briggs; and
the Brandenburg 3rd and Air on a G String are Pablo Casals conducting
the Marlboro Festival Orchestra. [Incidentally, it was at the Marlboro Festival
where GG interviewed Casals for his _Casals: A Portrait for Radio_]

The weird and curious part is the liner notes-- help me out with this
one, guys.  They're signed by "J.G.St.R(beep beep)" and they're from
the point of view of the year 2268 when the synth has superceded the
acoustic keyboard.  About GG:

		"Lest the reader feel any temptation to look superciliously
	upon pre-electronic music, or music performed on pre-electronic
	instruments, it should be noted immediately that in the hands of
	capable artists (such as the ones presented here) these primative
	instruments were capable of quite a large range of effects and some
	very sophisticated interpretations. I suggest the reader listen, for
	example, to the Invention in B-flat Major in which Mr. Gould, having
	at his disposal, of course, no real means of changing the timbre of
	the instrument, still manages to invest the notes of the piece with
	several distinct and different articulations. Such subtlety is not
	considered child's play..."

No comment in the notes about any other of the pieces and if I didn't know
better I'd think GG wrote it-- with all the chat about instruments and
their limitations and uses it sounds something like _A Question of
Instrument_. The last line is the giveaway, though-- very UN-GG "...no
one yet has been able to program what the twentieth century called
'heart' into a machine." The cover is exactly the same photo of the
_Switched on Bach_ but it's closer up. Columbia Masterworks Stereo MS
7241, is the catalogue number. The LP is even stranger to me consider
GG's article about _Switched on Bach_ calling it the "Record of the
Decade." Am I missing a joke? Who is J.G.St.R? 

-Mary Jo,
mwatts@rci.rutgers.edu