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Re: [F_MINOR] GG Recordings You Like That Everyone Else Hates
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- Subject: Re: [F_MINOR] GG Recordings You Like That Everyone Else Hates
- From: fred.houpt@RBC.COM
- Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 15:38:01 -0400
- Comments: To: Eric.Cline@REICHHOLD.COM
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- Thread-topic: [F_MINOR] GG Recordings You Like That Everyone Else Hates
Title: RE: [F_MINOR] GG Recordings You Like That Everyone Else Hates
Kudos to Eric for a
great post. GG's approach to music was always a bold and personalized and
courageous act. He knew full well what previous generations of performers
had brought to the table. He was also aware that it was his responsibility
to first allow the music to speak to him, then feel what sympathetic vibrations
it caused within his soul and then after great contemplation to create his own
personal statement. GG's tendencies to extremes have been written about in
great amounts. What you bring forward here is that his insights, although
off centre at the best of times, show legitimate insights into the ideas
inherent in the creation. There are old philosophical arguments about
whether a composer should have or could have the final word on
interpretation. Some would say that it is not possible for anyone to have
the final word on artistic _expression_ and that it is up to the listener to
decide whether the performance works for them. Take acting for another
example. Is there someone who really knows how to deliver Shakespearean
lines "correctly". They will be the same lines whether they are mumbled by
Brando or spoken by Pacino or Gilgud or Orson Wells. It is up to us to
decide if we like what we are hearing. It is of course true that with
music there are strong indications of tempi and dynamics. However, GG had
the guts to use them at his pleasure, not always thrilling his listeners.
His Mozart and Brahms tempi are at times either laughable, incomprehensible or
just bizarre. However, the underlying beauty of the music is still there,
despite the precocious ten fingers.
His Beethoven is often
approached in an eccentric manner. I once heard on CBC radio
archives, his attempt at directing one of the Beethoven piano concertos, I think
number 2, with a local smaller orchestra and a very frightened or nervous
pianist. He spoke to the musicians, telling them that he knew that he was
fooling around at the most extreme periphery of performance standards but
he wanted them to work with his ideas. He asked them to play the slow
movement about 50% slower than normal, as if the whole orchestra had downed a
bottle of valium. They played a few minutes of the slow movement and I
have to tell you it was the most odd sound. One knew all the notes as they
are very familiar. Then again the theme sounded as if it was going in slow
motion. The thing that surprised me is that I actually enjoyed his
experiment even though it was quite perverse, going far beyond the Brahms he did
with Bernstein, which created such a stir.
GG enjoyed pulling apart
any tempo that Mozart used. Why is not clear to me. He often held
Wolfy in contempt and I think the reason was that GG had decided that Mozart had
squandered one of the most immense God given talents by cranking out pedestrian
music. He termed it like that because he judged that Mozart could have
done much better had he been more motivated. That might be the case and
perhaps he enjoyed being overly cantankerous with tempi as if to twist Mozart's
nose.
Personally, my favourite
GG Beethoven are the small pieces, some of the pieces without opus number
and the like. I forget the actual names just now but I think you all know
them. He was able to take such small scale piano pieces and create the
most stunning and beautiful miniature galaxies of sound, even if the whole piece
was 30 seconds long. I have never heard another pianist, not even Brendel,
out-do the shimmering transcendental sounds that he pulled from the
strings. As well his Beethoven/Liszt symphonic renditions of the 6'th and
bits of the 3'rd (or was that the Creatures of Prometheus?) are without
peer.
I'm starting to go on
too long. It's such great fun to talk about GG.
(P.S. , his Haydn is the
defacto standard in my view)
regards,
Fred
Houpt
[snip]
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