Re: GG-Shostakovich Quintet

[john burke <john.burke@mindspring.com>]

on 2/12/2000 3:59 PM, Robert Kunath at kunath@hilltop.ic.edu wrote:

> I have the
> sense that he had absorbed the modernist perspective that largely dismissed
> Shostokovich as hopelessly retrograde.  A pity--I'd give a lot to hear a
> recording of Gould doing the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues.

Yes, so would I.

As to modernism, his approach to the Quintet is more like Schumann than
anything else. Is this a High Romantic side of Gould emerging, or a
backhanded commentary on Shostakovich's premodern Russian style? I know my
jaw dropped when I read (in Friedrich?) that GG had performed the Glinka
"Trio Pathetique" at some Festival or other in Canada. That's a piece I have
a kind of guilty fondness for, but it's not, um, very good music; I
described the slow movement to a friend as "a Chopin Nocturne, but without
talent."

The other striking thing about the Gould Shostakovich Quintet video is his
arm-waving. The string players seem to be making an effort *not* to
look--understandable enough, since he's incredibly distracting.
-- 
jvb