Re: GG: Charles Rosen's Goldbergs

[Alan <alan@amanda.dorsai.org>]

AT the TImes Square NY Virgin MegaStore I will buy my 3rd copy of the 
GVar. by Rosen tomorrow. Can never have enough of a good thing.

GG was a romanticist?
 OK. 

Andras Schiff's feel more so.
Any thoughts?

to all---

happy JSB of any kind.

btw world:  Maria Tipo's Partitas are superb.

alan@amanda.dorsai.org       ...............   New York City

" There is no cure for birth or death save to enjoy the interval." 
     George Santayana, American poet, philospher.

On Sat, 11 Jan 1997, Robert Clements wrote:

> At 22:46 9/1/1997 +0000, Alun Severn wrote:
> >
> >I wonder what folks think of Charles Rosen's version of the Goldbergs (Sony
> >Essential Classics, SBK 48173). I bought this some months ago in a sale and
> >have been playing it on and off ever since, gradually coming to the
> >conclusion that here is an interpretation which is pretty damned close to
> >GG's for its tone, its rigor, its shape and wholeness, while at the same
> >time largely free (it seems to me, certainly no expert) of the extremes of
> >tempi that GG's later version is often accused of.
> >
> >Though if I am not mistaken, all repeats are observed, making it a rather
> >long exercise.
> 
> Shockingly underrated performance; which (as you surmised) includes all
> repeats... should be a _lot_ better known (it probably suffers from critics
> who assume that only GG amongst pianists can play the Goldbergs).
> 
> I'm not sure that the similarity with GG holds _that_ well though (apart
> from the straight & _clavier_ clean piano sound, which both pianists were
> searching for): Rosen was basically using a classicist's aesthetic to
> _realise_ the score; whereas - as always - GG's performance is a
> romanticist's reconsideration bordering on (figurative) transcription of the
> work. But for my money, at least, Rosen really _is_ an essential classic....
> 
> All the best,
> 
> 
> Robert Clements
> clemensr@mailhost.world.net
>