Re: Glenn and Franz

[Anssi Korhonen <altkorho@MAPPI.HELSINKI.FI>]

Lainaus Peter Lyon <petermlyon@HOTMAIL.COM>:

> Greetings everyone.
> Listening to GG play the Brahms Ballades, I wondered if he had ever
> considered playing any Shubert. I know of his aversion to Chopin,
> Schumann,
> Liszt etc. but he did play a few of their works, but to the best of my
> knowledge no Schubert. Can't help thinking his takes on the large
> sonatas
> would have been interesting. Is there any documentation as to his opinion
> of
> the Viennese Master.
> Just curious.
> Peter Lyon
>

Greetings,

The only remarks on Schubert by Gould that I'm familiar with are from his
essay on Richter, which includes a reminiscence of a recital by Richter in
Moscow, May 1957. Richter performed Schubert's piano sonata B flat Major,
which has a longish first movement (Richter's interpretation seems to have
been notoriously slow, making the piece even longer). Gould mentions, and
gives some reasons for, his aversion to Schubert, and continues by
describing Richter's truly remarkable interpretation, which, after a while,
put Gould, the sceptic listener, into a state of "hypnotic trance". I don't
know if Richter's performance convinced Gould of the validity of Schubert's
musical language. Probably I didn't, and GG's hypnotic trance had less to
to with Schubert than it did with Richter's playing of Schubert.

Since I'm citing this thing from memory, I cannot give the details. (I
posted a summary of Gould's Richteriana to F-minor a few years ago, but his
often convoluted way of expressing himself eludes me. I have a friend who
can cite Hegel's somewhat complicated definition of electricity in the
original German, but I'm not capable of such phenomenal performances).
Gould's impressions on Richter - and Schubert - can be found in Bruno
Monsaingeon's film "Richter: the Enigma". I don't know whether they can be
found elsewhere but I suppose so (there's also a book by BM with the same
title; I don't recall if it contains a reference to Gould; I have to look
it up).

anssi k.