Re: GG as technician:Ravel's "La Valse"

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

On Wed, 4 Sep 1996, Eugene Selig wrote:

> While listening to GG's own "transcription," based on R's transcription 
> for solo piano, I was reminded of the New York Times music critic's 
> scathing review of GG's collaboration with L. Bernstein on the Brahms' d 
> minor concerto. The reviewer, Harold Schonberg, implied that GG's 
> technique wasn't too good, because of what seemed too slow a tempo, one 
> that LB felt he needed to "disclaim" verbally to the audience. 

That's amusing (the insinuation that GG's technique wasn't too good),
because technique is the ability to bring off musically convincing results
at whatever tempo is chosen.  For musical reasons (and sometimes physical
reasons as well), especially slow tempos are particularly difficult,
because they best show off a lack of attention to detail; it is much
easier to bluff through a piece at a fast tempo than a slow tempo.  At a
slow tempo, the performer has more responsibility to put everything
clearly in place and make sense of it; also, the performance lasts longer,
so there is more time available for lapses of concentration to occur.  The
pianists I can think of who have demonstrated the best available technique
for playing slowly are Richter, Gould, and Pogorelich.  They can make the
listener hang on the potential of every note, at even the slowest tempo. 
I haven't heard that from Kissin, Newman, Cliburn, .... 

And I think the Brahms concerto performance couldn't have been carried off
at all without Bernstein.  He too was one of the masters of intensity at
slow tempos, along with Stokowski, Barbirolli, Klemperer, Scherchen,
Celibidache, and a few others.  Even with Bernstein, it takes the
orchestra about ten minutes into the first movement before they sound able
to play comfortably at Gould's tempo. 

> This "La 
> Valse" performance, on one of the Sony series on GG, is not really a 
> "transcription," since nothing is changed, but GG plays ALL the notes in 
> the smashingingest display of technical fireworks, equalled only by V. 
> Horowitz' "Star-Spangled Banner," or "Carmen" Variations.
> I sent for a copy of the score from the Canadian National Library. It 
> shows GG's comments and mark-ups, but nothing resembling anything 
> that can be called a "transcription." Here is GG as we have never heard 
> him, complete with all the ostentation he eschewed all his life, if you 
> don't count his overly speedy tempos in Bach and Mozart. The Ravel is not 
> dazzling merely because of fast finger work. He executes the fullest solo 
> scoring of the orchestral work, making R's own two-piano version pale 
> by comparison.

I've seen the video of this three or four times, and listened many more
times to the CD dubbing of it (the earlier Music and Arts one).  I have a
quite different reaction to it.  It is entertaining to *watch*, as a
display of fast-moving hands and arms.  But musically I find it very
unsatisfying, especially without the picture.  Gould plays too near the
surface of the notes: clean notes in place of convincing phrases (he plays
the notes instead of the music).  The music doesn't dance.  It evokes
little beyond "wow, look at him go."  I've listened to it in A/B
comparisons with the other recordings I have of the solo version (two by
Pennario, and one each by Lortie, Simon, and Thiollier).  All of these
performances are much more interesting, exciting, and graceful than
Gould's.  They are fresher, more glittery and evocative, and they dance. 
Same for Lortie's recording of the duo version, with Mercier. 

And it sounds as if Gould *is* indeed playing his own transcription or
elaboration: there are notes and register choices that are not in the
performances of the standard version, plus he changes the dynamics and
pedaling quite a bit.  It goes beyond the frequent Gould practice of
bringing out unexpected parts.  I haven't seen Gould's score, but I think
it is unlikely that he wrote down everything he actually played. 
(Remember his musing about finding his old score of a Beethoven concerto,
and noting that he had marked nothing.) Have you compared Gould's score
directly with his performance?  Gould did most of his interpretive work
(and performance) in his mind, not with scores.  He didn't play the
Beethoven/Liszt 5th symphony verbatim, either; did he mark that up?  Did
he write out his Strauss opera transcriptions before playing them on
television?  Are there written-out scores of his three Wagner
transcriptions, with enough detail that someone else could play them
accurately without having heard the record?  How about his comment that
when he conducted some Schoenberg from the piano, he had to unlearn the
parts that he had been playing which weren't actually his? 

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Bradley Lehman, bpl@umich.edu       http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/