Re: [F_minor] doubts II

[Brad Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

michael macelletti wrote:
> the point is that beethoven and mozart really have 
> something to offer. when gg superimposes his personality
> on them it comes out in a strange way. mozart appears
> to be under the influence of " fun-house " mirrors.

So does GG's Bach.  :)  It's such a stylistic mash.  He played it as if 
Bach's music follows Schoenberg's rules.  He deconstructed Bach's music, 
similar to the way Rosalyn Tureck did with it.  It's interesting, of 
course, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the French and 
Italianate features of the music; he stripped those out.  GG's Bach 
certainly has sold well, always.  It still has next to nothing to do 
with Baroque principles, though.

Eventually (and I've said this before, years ago), GG's Bach became more 
"Glenn Gould's Bach" or "GG's deconstructions of Bach as if Schoenberg 
had written it" than "Bach as played by Glenn Gould".  I am aware that 
that's probably a minority view in present company. :)

> beethoven and brahms appear manic-depressive , with the 
> manic going to beethoven, and the depressive going to brahms.
> chopin appears to be transformed into wood.

Well said.

> with bach, it works. it works superbly. but it really seems
> to be limited to there.  ---- and the new works he comes up
> with ? well, that's obviously a contrarian approach.
> a very smart idea in a world full of pianists who can play
> everything.

Canny marketing by GG; agreed.

> i mean , who would want to perform the tchaikovsky 
> first concerto knowing that many have heard the greatest
> recordings of it already.-----        but really !
> works like those of  schoenberg and webern are just good
> for the colored pencil industry. they come in very handy
> trying to analyze them.

I have to disagree with this part.  I think GG's interpretations of 
Schoenberg's music are GG's best work.  He put it across directly as 
music, making it warm and inviting INSTEAD OF intellectual 
colored-pencil exercises.  He played Schoenberg's p 11, especially, as 
if it were several more Brahms intermezzi (another of his best 
recordings).  That works.  It emphasizes Schoenberg's romanticism, and 
what Schoenberg said about his own approach.

When GG then turned around and recorded Bach suites as if they're dozens 
more "wanna-be" examples of Schoenberg's Suite Op 25, just having 
different notes...well, that doesn't work so well.  Entertaining, yes. 
Brilliant in a way that's _sui generis_.  Marketable, too.  "GG's Bach," 
reducing the music to the motivic level and lining it up with great 
creativity and clarity...not being content with merely playing it for 
what it is.  GG didn't allow Bach's music to emerge on its own terms, or 
in its own stylistic and historical contexts.  It had to be made "new", 
in terms of what was sort of new in about 1950.  It was Bach as seen 
through the off-rose-colored neoclassicism of Hindemith, Schoenberg, and 
Stravinsky.  Oh yeah, Hindemith: another of GG's strengths as an 
interpreter.

GG's own string quartet?  The style of early Schoenberg and Hindemith, 
warmed over, with a heavy dose of Reger.


Brad Lehman
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