gg, bernstein, and interpretation....

["T.R. Thiessen" <punch@sk.sympatico.ca>]

First of all, my apologies to the list, for my words last night
regarding morons etc.  I was a little too quick on the reply key, ah?

Second of all, I understand that the silver jubilee album contains the
brahms concerto played with the nyphilharmonic, the infamous concert
where bernstein addressed the audience ahead of time regarding
interpretive differences, etc.

I was fortunate enough to have taped the recording on gg's last
birthday, and the cbc host that day happened to be the one who
interviewed gould in 1963 regarding this incident, and to which gould
gave some insight....(I was, oddly enough, listening to the tape on the
way home from work, and thought about sending it in to f-minor, so here
goes): as an intermission guest on a ny philharmonic radio program...

    IN addressing the way in which two collaborators, both of
outstanding calibre, can approach a symphonic work, & have such diverse
conception of the piece.....

"I don't know that there's a satisfactory explanation, as far as what
transpired last year, I seemed to be the only person around who felt
that Mr. Bernstein's speech was full of the best of good spirits, and
great charm, and I in fact sat backstage giggling before we played the
thing in fact I could hardly get started.
    But there is no solution to this sense of collaboration that's
demanded of a concerto - part of the concerto idea is of course the
sense of non-collaboration, the sense of willingness of the virtuoso -
so called - to 'show off.'  And I think it's this, it's the traditions
that emanate out of that that prompted me to do what I did because what
went on last year was in no way a particularly new way of performing
that particular Brahms concerto except for one thing, and that was our
proportions of tempi and our proportions of dynamics tended to be scaled
closer together than is usually the case.  There was less - if I say
exaggeration, I don't mean it critically of other people's performances
- but there was less exaggeration in that sense of the word, there was
less divergence between what could be called the masculine-feminine
approach of the piano concerto between first theme and second theme,
between the barking of the orchestra and the placidity of the piano.  It
was a much more tightly welded unit, what I wanted to do.  Now, Lenny
felt that in order to preserve the antagonism of orchestra for piano
there ought to be greater contrast, there ought to be larger dynamic
spans and greater changes of tempi and I was at that time, and still am,
I may say, in a baroquish mood as far as even the nineteenth century
concerto is concerned.  I was trying to bring a common pulse to the
movements and to hold things together in that if rather arbitrary, if
for me nevertheless, convincing way.  And this is what happened it was
simply the meeting at two points of our particular metamorphosis at
which he was more in favour of the tradition which has accrued around
the concerto style and I wished at that moment to break with it.
Q:    You say at that moment?
A:    I may change, I only imply that I-
Q:    No, have you always felt that way?
A:    About that particular piece I have, I have not applied quite as
extreme an analysis to other works of the same genre, but I have about
that particular work.....so I was very greatful for the chance to do
this for the chance to exhibit it nationally, so to speak, on the radio,
and I was very grateful to Mr. Bernstein for going along with this, I
only write (?) that he should get off the hook himself....."


So, it would seem to me that there are two traditions that gg points to
here, the tradition of the concerto itself (as a form), and the
tradition of the performance of the concerto (as content?).  I am
interested in the points he makes about the masculine-feminine
dichotomies present, and wonder if this is a fair way to think of the
performance of a concerto?  Of course, it is well known what he thought
of performance after some time, and does this give some insight into
why, perhaps, he felt that way?  Was there an antagonism between the
orchestra and the piano inherent in the genre?

Again, my apologies to the list for my moronic comments....