Re: GG : About Authenticity

["Mark Williamson" <mwilliamson@alston.com>]

     I enjoyed this post.  I like that particular recording too.  
     And I have also noticed how passages of that recording are 
     as rhythmically steady as rock-n-roll while others border on 
     rubato.
     
     There are certainly a lot of different views on what baroque 
     performance practice best requires.  There is an incredible 
     amount of interest in this right now and there are a lot of 
     advocates of "playing" with the tempo much as Mr. Gould does 
     in the recording you describe.  But one thing we can say for 
     sure:  playing Bach with the foot heavy on the sustain 
     pedal, and with 19th century style ornamentations, is 
     definitely not authentic.  And what we have to remember in 
     1997 is that, before the work of Gould and others during the 
     period from 1930 to 1955, that is exactly how pianists were 
     playing the work of Bach.  There are some transcriptions by 
     F. Liszt along these lines, and many of you probably also 
     have mixed feelings about the Busoni transcriptions 
     (although IMHO there are some very convincing modern 
     performances of those).
     
     It's important not to fault people like Mr. Liszt who played 
     the work of Bach in the style of their own day.  At least 
     they played it.  We know how the classicists (and even more 
     so their listeners) neglected and even forgot the work of 
     the baroque period and other earlier periods, until the 
     1780s when the most brilliant classicists began to 
     rediscover that work.  Indeed, this was true of most style 
     periods prior to the 19th century romanticists.  Whatever 
     you think of the romanticists, you have to give them credit 
     for the respect they had for their predecessors and for 
     pioneering the notion that music shouldn't die just because 
     it isn't new or goes out of fashion with the general public.
     
     Mark


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: GG : About Authenticity
Author:  Michel Crucifix <michel.crucifix@scf.fundp.ac.be> at internet
Date:    6/5/97 9:36 PM


     
        Hi minors,
     
        Just a word about Mark's post (5/28 14.48), saying that Gould 
  was a pioneer in authenticity.
     
        I have read in the Encyclopeadia Universalis that GG sometimes
  corrected Bach's own faults in constructions of conter-point. 
     
        Always about authenticity : the Prelude n°2 C minor (W.T.K. vol I;
  recordset  63/64/65) is particularly amazing. Gould takes there a lot of 
  liberties  in tempo :  slowing, accelerating,... but the most disturbing 
  (from an  academical point of view) is that way of picking all the notes,  
  and  playing the whole piece much slower than most pianists. But, as far 
  as I'm concerned, the genius of Gould appeares clearly  when  he  puts a 
  light  on the  melody  of  the  bassest  notes,  often  away from other
performances.
___________________________________________________
Michel Crucifix , etudiant en physique, Courriere, Belgique 
Eudora 1.5.2 (attached files ; quoted printable)
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Interests : Piano (Practice & listening Glenn Gould) ; Astronomy