GG: 2 & 3 Part Inventions

[Ingvar Loco Nordin <loco.nordin@mbox200.swipnet.se>]

Hi all!

It surprises me a bit that among all these Gouldians there is no one yet
who has turned out attention to the sleeve notes of the Sony GG Edition nr
SMK 52 596; the Two-Part Inventions and the Three-Part Sinfonias (BWV
772-801), where there is an extensive investigation into the matter of the
sound of the piano on this particular recording. The article is called
"Battles Over A Piano". Here are a few excerpts:

First there is a discussion of why there were ten recording days in  half a
year, where Gould try to record the set. Then the article goes on:

"The solution to the mystery is to be found in a few lines appearing as
remarks on the Artist Contract Card relating to the production: >If another
piano is requested and selected for the sess. such rental, tuning and
transportation costs will constitute  an adv. ag, roy<, the point being
that the piano that Gould had brought specially from Toronto to the CBS
Studio in New York suffered from such a pronounced hiccup that even the
most experienced Steinway technicians gave up the struggle, and no one -
other than Gould, of course - seriously believed that a recording that was
at all acceptable could be produced on this instrument.

The piano in question was a Steinway built in New York in 1938 or 1939,
bearing the number CD 318. In late 1960 or 1961 Gould, who had played it on
previous occasions, began to take it seriously. He says: >At one time I
found it important to have a different sort of piano for every kind of
music. I no longer do. I use it for everything now. It's an extraordinary
piano<.

When Gould played the first bars of the scheduled Bach recording on Sep 18,
Paul Myers and the technicians from CBS must also have found the piano
extraordinary - extraordinarily disastrous! Gould himself had eventually to
admit that it would not do, and although Steinway's mechanics did their
best, both to achieve the sound that Gould had in mind, and to get rid of
the piano's disturbing background noises, no progress was made, and not a
single take recorded in the following six sessions. On Jan 2 1964 the whole
affair was ajourned until the middle of March. Gould made use of the time
to tinker with the instrument himself, until eventually he got as near to
his ideal sound that on March 18 and 19 1964 - a mere two days - he
recorded all thirty pieces en bloc, without making use of any of the
previous takes. Myers and Columbia, however, found it difficult to share
Gould's enthusiasm for the result; only after he had undertaken an
explanatory - not to say exculpatory - note to accompany the disc, did they
agree, with extremely mixed feelings, to the issue.

In Gould's words it went something like this:

>CD 318 has undergone major surgery (in effect, to try to design an
>instrument for baroque repertoire which can add to the undeniable resource
>of the modern piano something of the clarity and tactile facility of the
>harpsichord). The alignment of such essential mechanical matters as the
>distance of the hammer from the strings, the after-touch mechanism etc,
>has been earnestly reconsidered in accordance with my sober conviction
>that no piano need feel duty-bound to always sound like a piano. Old 318,
>if released from its natural tendency in that direction, could probably be
>prevailed upon to give us a sound of such immediacy and clarity that those
>qualities of non-legato so essential to Bach would be gracefully realized.
In my opinion, the present disc brings us within reach of this objective.
The operation, performed just before the sessions which produced the
Inventions, was so successful that we plunged joyfully into the recording
without allowing CD 318 its post-operative  recuperation.  Consequently,
our enthusiasm for the rather extraordinary sound it now possessed allowed
us to minimize  the one minor after-effect which it had sustained - a
slight nervous tic in the middle register which in slower passages can be
heard emitting a sort of hiccup - and to carry on with the sessions without
stopping to remedy this defect. I must confess, that having grown somewhat
accustomed to it, I now find this charming idiosyncrasy entirely worthy of
the remarkable instrument which produced it. However, in our best of all
worlds, we would hope to preserve the present sound while reducing the
hiccup effect<.

Nevertheless, another two-and-a-half years (mainly taken up with endless
improvements to the master-tape) elapsed after the completion of recording
on March 19 1964, until the Inventions and Sinfonias were issued on October
17 1966, in the precise order which Gould had decided upon, and which is
retained in the present edition. This is not from numbers 1 to 15, rising
be semitone and whole-tone steps, as Bach had arranged the collection, but
in an order in which the succeeding numbers - with the exception of the
major/minor combinations, which Gould retained (although in three out of
the six cases he reversed the order) - stand in the relationship either of
a third or of a forth/fifth."

I hope this qoutation from the sleeve notes of the Edition issue casts some
light on the matter!

Ingvar Loco Nordin in Swedenland.


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