GG Tim Page article

[Anne Smith <smithqa@nexicom.net>]

Dominic asked:

"Has anyone here read the Tim Page article about the perceived tempi
difference
between the '55 and '82 Goldbergs which appeared in (I think) the March '01
edition of GlenGould magazine?  Any comments?"

I have read this article.  I think it is important to note that Glenn Gould
completely wrote out this "spontaneous" interview in advance.  The joking
about T.P. being a stopwatch freak was no doubt GG's opinion of critics in
general.

I think the key to GG's thoughts on the differences between the 1955 and the
1981 recordings of the Goldberg Variations is:

"But you can take a basic pulse, and divide it or multiply it - not
necessarily on a scale of two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, but often
with far less obvious divisions, I think - and make the result of those
divisions or multiplications act as a subsidiary pulse for a particular
movement, or section of a movement ...........  So, in the case of the
Goldberg, there is, in fact, one pulse which, with a few very minor
modifications, - mostly modifications which I think take their cue from
ritards at the end of the preceding variation, something like that - one
pulse that runs all the way throughout."
GG had TP say previously - "and, in one or two very notable variations, you
actually played more quickly ( meaning the 81 recording) And yet, the
feeling, the mood, the architecture of this performance is just so totally
different .."

GG admitted later in the article that the "system" he used for the speeds of
each variation "sounds just so relentlessly clinical - so ruthlessly sterile
and anti-musical, really - and it is, at that level."

It seems to me as though he re-thought the structure of the Goldbergs the
second time around.  The actual speeds of each variation by itself was not
what was important.  What mattered was the architecture of the WHOLE work.
I have shelved major works and come back to them.  I have found that the
second time around I can focus more on the structure of the whole piece than
 I did the first time when I had to worry about putting the correct finger
on the correct note at the right time.

Anne Smith

P.S.  From the Editor's note about sources used for this article"...as well
as a transcription of the English text made by Miyazawa and revised by Mary
Jo Watts."