Re: the big question for GG aficionados

["Antoine Mathys" <salon.jaune@qui.qc.ca>]

> His Beethoven is uneven, too fast or distractingly slow, as in the Mozart
> sonatas i.e. never boring (which actually turned me on to playing the
> easier ones myself as a teenager (and interjecting my own
> eccentricities...)).
> The worst recording he ever approved for release is his first movement of
> the Appassionata no.23!  I wouldn't part with it though!!  I play it when
> I'm in the mood and just marvel(?) at his flamboyance.  I believe he said
> his recordings weren't worth the effort if they weren't different than
what
> was already available. Anyway this one is worth the price of the set.
> 
> The Haydn sonatas are unmistakably Gould at his best and the tour de
force
> No. 62 (Hoboken XVI No.52), Haydn's last sonata, is again worth the price
> of the whole set!  If you get to know this recording over a period of
weeks
> it will not only reward you with an insight into one of Gould's greatest
> interpretations but also of the convincing power and depth of late Haydn
> (which I was not aware of after playing him all my life and ranking him a
> lesser master in the piano literature!).  This recording begs the
question:
> Is the interpretive artist able to conjure up from the bare notes more
than
> what the composer was able to appreciate in his time?  I believe GG would
> say no, but I am no so confident....
> 
Jerry and Judy...  
You shouldn't take your weekness or sight-shortedness, this with all due
respect, as an analysis base!  The notes, all the notes, are in the score
for anyone to see and the relationship between them to evaluate.  I believe
GG is the most transparent musician their is.  A fact we often try to
avoid, affraid of distabilizing our too well-grounded view points.  GG is
not responsible for what you've discovered in Haydn: he just played the
piece with the greatest authenticity an artist can achieve, just to have
people hear... what's in the score.  The only goal an interpretor must
have.  And this, yes, is creation.  But only if the whole being, without
compromise what so ever, reaching for maximum intensity, is involved in the
act of communication.  At this point, this act transcends mere
communication to become simple contemplation, or better yet, communion:
this is what ecstasy is all about. I believe no one can be called +artist;
until one has shared ecstasy, whatever the times or means.  And GG is
nothing less than one, to be put, not as one of music's server, but as an
authentic creator on the same level as the Haydns, Beethovens or
Schvnbergs.