GG: Sony Vandalism :-)

["Cline, Eric" <eric.cline@reichhold.com>]

I agree with Mary Jo, the new Sony CD's of GG's music do indeed appear
to have been "sanitized" of some of the extra "sound effects". I
remember as a boy hearing GG play the Op.10 Beethoven Sonatas and
hearing some strange noises on the record which sounded like singing ! I
was certain that the record was defective and so I returned it only to
find my replacement had the same "defect", it was then that I noticed
the disclaimer on the back of the cover which said that GG's chair was
responsible for the noise and that Columbia records was trying to have a
noiseless replacement made for GG, but that he refused to give up his
chair even to the Smithsonian Institute. It urged us as connoisseurs of
music not to allow the noise to bother us. On the Columbia CD of those
same recordings the "sound effects" are greatly reduced, and on the Sony
CD, they are reduced even more, plus the "ping" seems to be missing
especially from the "Pathetique" sonata. I wish Sony (and Columbia) had
left well enough alone and not "improved" the recordings. These "sound
effects" too are part of the GG experience.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Eric Cline 
Senior Research and Development Chemist
Radiation Technology Synthesis Group
Reichhold Chemicals Inc.
e mail: eric.cline@reichhold.com

>----------
>From: 	Mary Jo Watts[SMTP:mwatts@rci.rutgers.edu]
>Sent: 	Sunday, August 25, 1996 9:50 PM
>To: 	f_minor@email.rutgers.edu
>Subject: 	GG:Orlando G.
>
>I don't think GG was being at all tongue-in-cheek by stating that
>Orlando Gibbons was his favorite composer. Listen to the Allemande
>Italian Ground [available on Images, and the Consort of Musicke CD]--
>IMHO 1:53 minutes of pure Gouldian ecstasy.  I find the anthems he
>loved so much haunting (and a profound influence on the Solitude
>Trilogy.) The Deller Consort recording I have is very good and it's on
>Victrola Records LP VICS-1551 and it's entitled _Thy Celestial
>State_. I also quite like the Gibbons Anthems sung by the Clerkes of 
>Oxenford-- two volume LP set on the Nonesuch label Catalogue #'s
>H-71391 [Vol 1] and H-71374 [Vol 2]. I don't know if they're available
>on CD but you could likely order them through: 
>
>The Princeton Record Exchange  
>20 S. Tulane St.
>Princeton, NJ 08542
>USA
>Tel. (609) 921-0881 
>
>I believe they ship all over the world and I've managed to collect
>about 80 GG LPs through them including the Silver Jubilee LP, The
>Concert Dropout LP, the organ Art of the Fugue, the Harpsichord Handel,
>some bootlegs, etc. and other Gould relevent recordings such as the
>Gibbons, and two versions of Karajan's Sibelius 5th, etc. I should
>also add that I've never paid more than $8 US for ANY of the
>Gould stuff, including the boxed sets like _Glenn Gould Plays
>Bach_. The Gibbons LPs were $3 US a piece. The 1st Goldbergs in the orig.
>cover
>was I think 4$, the 2nd Goldbergs on LP run approx. 2$.  I found
>buying the LPs was a good way to get the GG catalogue very inexpensively.
>[Plus you get the great packaging and ALL the humming, creeking,
>clicking and moaning!] Is it just me or do the CD's sometimes seem to strip
>away that Gould ping-- the crispness?
>
>-Mary Jo
>