Re: GG CBC Records

[John Hill <jphill@home.com>]

"Megan, Ken and Anne" wrote:

> Dear John and fellow F Minors,
>
> The CBC people were indeed working from acetate.  They didn't say that the
> 'noise' they were trying to remove was humming.  (That was merely my
> assumption  -- obviously wrong.)  Still, it seems to me that there is less
> on the two CDs that I have.  These recordings were made from live
> performances when Glenn Gould was very young.  Perhaps he didn't hum as
> loudly then.  Like you,  I would not want to remove the humming .

An interesting side-topic for those who are researching the whole humming
aspect.  GG said something to the effect that the humming was there to "help"
the piano give him the kind of vocal line he wanted.  I think he did mention
somewhere that if the instrument was cooperating and things were going well
he didn't need to hum as much.  So I guess the humming phenomenon has
an "amplitude" and "threshold" aspect to it as well.  There *are* folks
researching this;  I read something recently to the effect that the *content*
of the humming often turns out to be an unrelated extra contrapuntal
part that GG was inserting subconsciously.

As for early vs. late period humming, I think I hear *less* of it in his later
recordings.  Perhaps he gained more control over it after all the years
of having people focus and comment on it.

cheers,
jh