GG: Glenn & the Muppet Show

[adellaer@mail.cc.trincoll.edu (A.D. Dell'Aera)]

Kristen Immoor laments:

     All told, one of my greatest vicarious regrets for Glenn Gould is
>that he never did the Muppet Show. To steal a lyric from the opening theme,
>it would have been "the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational,
>Muppetational..."

Yes, yes, absolutely.  One can just see old Harold Shonberg (sp?) sitting
up in the balcony complaining about Glenn's performance--"as he swings and
sways as though he were suspended from a string like the muppets in his
midst,  all in a deliberate and half-hearted attempt to ingratiate himself
with his rigid audience"   (Kristen, maybe you could use a take on this
quote in your anthology!!)  Recall, Mr. Shonberg was the NY Times critic
who claimed that GG performed the Brahms D-minor concerto so slowly because
he lacked a sufficient technique to play it _a tempo_.  Hey, maybe a Muppet
Show appearance was all Glenn needed to help him cope with his fears of
performing live in concert!  Alas, we shall never know.  Thus, not only
must we lament the loss of  a recording of Glenn's  improvisation on
Chopin's Military Polonaise, but we can also lament what would have been a
truly memorable accompanyment --Glenn and Kermit in "It's not easy being
green."  Of course, Glenn accompanying Kermit in Schubert's Winterreise
(move over Dietrich) would also be quite special, as would Glenn and Miss
Piggy in Strauss' Four Last Songs (I bet she'd be much easier for Glenn to
get along with than Miss Schwarzkopf was).

Of course these recordings do, in fact, exist--they will be miraculously
discovered (along with the missing Italian Concerto, etc) in the CBS (aka.
Sony) archives and will be released on DVD along with the rest of GG's
recordings, taking advantage of this technology in newly remastered 24-bit
sound, five years from now to commemorate what would be Glenn's 70th
birthday.  Do not despair, my wealthy friends, Sony WILL find some
innovative way to fit the least amount of music on each DVD!


Best always,
Tony