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Re: [F_MINOR] glenn gould's goldberg recordings

As you say, one instrument is very different from another. Few pianists
would disagree when I say that a Yamaha in general has a more hard edged
sound than a Steinway.


I'd disagree, from my experiences of playing both: the Steinways had
brighter tone than the Yamahas I met.  And Baldwins brighter than both.  I
especially liked a Bechstein I was engaged to play once.

Also, the way the instrument is regulated --
Gould wanted an exteremly fast action -- makes a big difference.


Of course it does.  That's why I think we can't generalize one way or the
other, safely.

The sound of the keys struck and the way rhythm is handled isn't exactly
the same thing, is it. The very sound he creates is quite lovely in many
of the slower variations. The crispness of the attack was always there,
be it combined with a more fixed pulse in later years.


All observations I agree with; but I'd say the sound he creates is even
*more* lovely heard in the analog version.  More rounded tone, all around,
the basic timbre of the instrument sounding more realistic (to me) than on
the digital...more like a real piano, as I've said.  It seems to me we're
just arguing preferences here.

Musically shallow implies the opposite of reflection and deeply
inspired/carefully thought out, doesn't it. In that sense it's very hard
to understand your altered opinion to a minor change. The very nature of
a performance cannot really have to do with whatever the ambience is
like. Is it really fair to change one's BASIC impression of an
interpretation when presented to it in a different medium? I know some
listeners prefer the softer edges of the LP to the CD, but that has in
my mind little to do with the interpretation itself.


Well, it looks like we'll have to "agree to disagree" on this one.  I don't
feel the difference here is a "minor change" but a huge one, in the
difference of the instrument's timbre.  Maybe just my perception.  I doubt
you can convince me that I'm not hearing what I believe I'm hearing.  (And
vice versa.)

In my experience there's almost no way to get a valid impression when
comparing recordings without a proper blindfold test. This goes double
for recordings with DIFFERENT soundlevels. The ear almost always prefers
the one with the higher volume.

Fair enough.

And, I'm pretty sure that an artist's musical choices include more
than pitches and rhythms; filtering does matter.  I spent a couple of
months last fall working on the production of one of my own recordings
(pipe organ, in this case).  The engineer sent me several different
equalizations of the same recording, and the musical effect was (to
me) quite different, sounding less real in some cases than others.
Most notably, two of the tracks were [accidentally] recorded in mono
while the rest are in stereo.  We tried half a dozen different ways to
make the mono seem like stereo, but *every time* I felt that the music
was diminished, that it compromised my interpretation.  We finally
ended up going with the straightforward mono for those two: where it
gives the most accurate musical effect in my artistic opinion as the
guy who played (and wrote) the music.  Anything more artificial in it
*changed* the artistic choices, far too much.


My basic premise is more primitive: I like as simple as possible
recorded sound, where clarity isn't sacrificed at the altar of the
presence of the acoustic room itself. Too much reverberant, nicely
laid-back spineless recorded sound is being produced by modern recording
companies, especially by British labels.


My basic premise is just as primitive <grin> probably because it's so
similar: the recording should sound like a real-life performance.  I also
prefer "simple as possible" recorded sound, with no elaborate mixing or
second-guessing.  Very few microphones, letting the instruments sound as
they really do in the space where the performance was done, no tricks.

We performers adjust our work to fit the space, when we're really listening
to what we're doing.  The recording should then reproduce that as
accurately as possible, not change it: because all the decays and tonal
shadings and pedalings &c affect one another, inextricably: they affect
articulation, tempo, voicing, and more.  A musician shapes all those
musical elements by the way the sound is coming back to his/her experienced
ear, and (to some extent subconsciously) adjusts everything else to make it
all jell convincingly.  If the recording changes *any* of that, it's
second-guessing the musician's ear and abilities.

So: to convince me that the digital version is better, you'll first have to
convince me that it reproduces piano tone (in that particular studio) more
accurately than the analog one does.  Sure, plenty of people might *like*
the digital one better (either as a straightforward preference, or through
more familiarity, or from familiarity with many other DDD piano recordings)
but that's a different argument.

>>Who's to say 
that Gould's choice of digital for the LP release was *entirely*
motivated by the musical/artistic effect it would make, and not just
convenience (easier editing) and staying _au courant_?

You're guessing here. 

Yes, I was guessing.  But those would indeed be plausible reasons for
choosing the digital.  Who's to say that Gould's choice didn't at least
partially include them?  Maybe even as a trade-off against less warmth of
tone?  Everybody makes business compromises.

The fact that the analog version is less bass
clear -- I defy you to prove me wrong -- wouldn't go well with Gould's
appreciation for contrapuntal transparency.


Given the way lefty GG pounded out the bass lines in this performance, it's
moot: they're plenty clear and transparent in either version.  Indeed, I've
felt for a long time that the digital one is unnaturally bass-heavy, and
that's for years before the analog one ever came out.  Finally, things are
restored to a more natural balance here, in my opinion.  It's just a matter
of perspective.  Is the bass clearer in the digital?  Yes.  Is that
musically better?  Not necessarily.  I'd say it's not.  A more
unified/blended sound is just as good a goal.

An attempt to trump this with guesses at what Gould would have wanted is
moot.  He's gone.  The analog and digital are two separate recordings,
coincidentally having most of their features in common.  All we can really
do is say which one we like better, and offer musical reasons for our
preference.  That's all I have done.

Hope this helps to clarify my earlier remarks, 

Yes, and thank you for using less dramatic words.
When choosing phrases like "musically shallow" and "off-putting piano
sound" you're not really making much sense.


Well, it makes sense to me for the reasons I described; the piano sound in
the digital issue *does* put me off, and therefore it's "off-putting" to
this listener.

Anyway, I'll give it several more listens to see if I've changed my mind
any in the past year or so.  :)

Brad Lehman

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