"Which Goldberg Variations?" redux, + Siegfried Idyll

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

Interesting!  I'd make the opposite argument: I think the 1981 recording
of the Goldbergs is *more* for public performance than the 1955.  It was
made simultaneously with a film, and that film has been shown both in
theatres and on television...how much more public could it be?

I think a point of the film was to show that Gould *did* still play the
piano physically, even though the sound and interpretation that came out
of the recording was more geared toward mechanical (maybe even
mechanistic?) wizardry than musical performance.  The film shows that that
inhuman evenness is still done by a guy sitting there pressing piano keys,
not an editor or a disembodied brain.

That's my take on "the medium is the message" for this one.

-----

If you'd stopped after making the same point about the "Siegfried Idyll"
and not got into the 1981 Goldbergs, I would have agreed with you....  :)
I think it's amusing that the back of the "Siegfried Idyll" CD case
credits the Musical Contractor/Artistic Assistant along with all the
individual players.  It's as if they had to give full credit to the guy
who could talk 13 professional musicians into the unnatural straitjacket
of Gould's conducting.  [OK, 14: they got two different players to supply
portions of the first clarinet part in different sessions.]

I enjoy this recording, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't sound like a
real performance by humans.  Every note is micro-managed for tempo and
dynamics with a machine-like precision, Gould the digital brain...the
players sound as if they had zero freedom in phrasing or other expression.
The players sound alert enough but not especially committed to this
enterprise.

Gould was his own producer on it, too...edit every note (if necessary) to
fit its intellectual role exactly, removing from the "performance" all
evidence of human bodies except for some bits of residual vibrato.
Interesting experiment.  It gives an ascetic effect indeed.

That's pretty much the opposite of Wagner's intention in the piece: it was
a Christmas/birthday present to his mistress.  Musicians gathered secretly
on the stairs to play it to her as she woke up...a sensual and sensuous
greeting, a sentimental expression of his affection.  Gould's version is
by contrast as anti-sensuous and anti-physical as it can be.  But what the
hey.


Mary Jo wrote:
>I'll pipe in and say the '81's all the way for me.  It's that recording
>that allowed me (a musical layperson) to appreciate the earlier studio
>recording. I'm putting the emphasis on recording here because I think
>that the latter Goldbergs (and the Siegfried Idyll records) are so
>interesting as technological explorations into the music.  They're really
>not at all about *performance* per se so in the long run comparing the
>the earlier versions and latter versions is like comparing apples and
>oranges as the aims are so different. It's like Gould had at his disposal
>the means to create a version from his music kit.  I'm going out on a
>limb and I'm going to posit that by the date of the recording of the
>latter Goldbergs Gould DID give up performing-- it was a mere coincidence
>that his fingers touched the keys of the piano at all.  If he could have
>mixed the record through other technological means (and in Dolby), he
>would just as well have done so! Unlike the recorded performances from
>the 50's, the final rendition of the Goldbergs was never meant to be
>performed in public.  I'd be interested to know how the medium defines
>the message and how this shapes our taste and preferences for one
>recording over another.


Bradley Lehman, Dayton VA
home: http://i.am/bpl  or  http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl
CD's: http://listen.to/bpl or http://www.mp3.com/bpl

"Music must cause fire to flare up from the spirit - and not only sparks
from the clavier...." - Alfred Cortot