Re: GG...and that harpsichord

[John Hill <jphill@home.com>]

Kate Clunies-Ross wrote:

> Oh dear....Can I now horrify everyone and say that I actually enjoy
> listening to this particular recording? (well, occasionally!)
> Yes, I have heard these criticisms before, and I must admit that when I
> first heard the CD I thought it was far and away one of the wierdest
> "harpsichord" recordings I had ever heard (I actually thought that the
> 'rubbery' sound you describe didn't sound like a harpsichord at all). But
> then...I began to enjoy it. Yup, its certainly not one of Goulds greater
> efforts in the recording studio. But he sounds as if he"s having fun... not
> to mention making a (metaphorical) rude gesture in the direction of those
> critics that he was usually pleased to ignore.
> The recording makes me smile even if I can't take it seriously.
> OK, I am no scholar, nor do I claim any great musical expertise. Bradley,
> you are no doubt tearing your hair with despair that an f_minor subscriber
> is so hopelessly uncritical. I will go and sit in a corner and cover my head
> with my hands in shame while everyone yells abuse at me.

Kate, one of the great things about music and aesthetics
is that, at the end of the day, you get to enjoy whatever the **** you want
and proclaim it to be the best thing ever.   And, y'know what?  There is
no effective counter-argument to anybody who says,
"I *LOVE* ..............".  I might try to convince you of why I feel
otherwise,
but I can't change the fact that you like something.  And really, should I?

This comes up routinely in my Critical Listening class, where I train young
perspective engineers and producers to try to understand why at least
half of the CDs they really love sound like crap.  Then, they have the rest
of their lives to come back to playing those CDs (which *do* sound like
crap) and just enjoy them for the music and the inspiration that is encoded
(often poorly) in the ones and zeros.

Becoming an "expert" in a field leads to one becoming really discriminating
and preferences change during that journey.  But none of that needs to
change the viscerally positive feeling one gets from listening to
music that somehow connects or resonates within you.  That "goosebump"
sensation that one gets is very significant and it's important not to lose
sight of that as one learns all kinds of other interesting things.

Bradley, for example, is still a list member here!  When he carries on about
GG's approach to the hrschd. or some really *wacko* interpretive thing
that GG did, he is arguing from a very informed position.  But that *doesn't*
mean that he is trying to instruct you on how *you* should feel when listening
to the same piece.   [as an aside, Bradley and I are pretty diametrically
opposite
in our feelings about early GG vs. late GG.  I just know I'm right about this,
but....]
Most of us who have known GG's work for some time would admit that what
initially drew us to those recordings was something very different from what
sustains our interest now.

Another example would be GG arguing strenuously with Bruno M. about middle-
period Beethoven or trying to convince Yehudi M. about why Schoenberg's
music was truly great.  It could have easily descended into a SNL parody of
the old CBS Point-Counterpoint debate.  (GG:  "Yehudi, you ignorant **** !!)

> I expect this has probably been asked before (that is, before I subscribed
> to F_minor): What other Gould recordings do people actually like,  even
> though  they reduced the critics to stunned disbelief?

I don't know about "stunned disbelief", but I've always really liked the
INVENTIONS & SINFONIAS album, despite the fact that folks carry on endlessly
about the "hiccup" effect and the vocal humming problem (I think this was right

in the middle of the gas mask experiment phase at the 30th St. studios).
I think it's a great album and GG's enthusiasm for the modified action of 318
shines through in his playing, which I find truly inspired.  Then there's that
Enoch Arden album.  Don't know how the critics felt, but GG certainly sounds
like he's having a great time on that one.

cheers (and go for the goosebumps!)
jh