|
Fascinating contributions to the list on this
thread from all four of you! Thank you!
I happen to be one who enjoys and knows both
Gould's Bach and various classic recordings of Chopin (Rubinstein, Perahia,
Pollini, Sokolov, Richter, Lipatti) intimately well. I have never thought
of comapring the two, but in an effort to identify with Gould's reluctance
towards Chopin, here goes...
First, Chopin's keyboard music is entirely
different from Bach's and that much is obvious. Bach is a brilliant study in
counterpoint with melody taking a secondary role, as in a fugue. Chopin is a
brilliant study in melody with counterpoint (or perhaps syncopated rhythms, like
3-on-2 or 8-on-3 in the F-minor ballad, for example) taking a secondary
role.
Next, Chopin was inherently a romantic composer
through and through. His music is rife with "zal" -- the Polish word for
nostalgia. It appears either as a fist-shaking lament of what was going on
in Poland at the time (Etude Op.25 No. 11), or a wistful, poignant memory of a
moment of folk life in the Polish countryside (Mazurka in A-minor, Op. 17,
No.4).
Now Gould was an inherently romantic
_performer_. To me, his appeal lies in his uncanny ability to
embellish Baroque music with romantic character.
And here comes the punch line, which is my
theory: Gould was passionate for imbibing the music he played with
romanticism, and confronted with Chopin's innate, prevalent and dominating
romanticism, Gould found that he had nothing to add and simply left it
aside. (Whether he did this vehemently one can only
speculate....)
Comments?
Matthew |