GG: I see a fugue...

[vxavier@sfsu.edu (Veronica Xavier)]

Hello, all!

Glad to see a recent posting (thanks, Joseph Podlesnik) on this subject,
hope my contribution isn't arriving after the 'fire has died'!  When I
think of GG in terms of artwork (and being an art student, I very often
do), his playing does and always has reminded me of one specific genre: 
the hyper-realistic paintings of the 16th century Dutch masters, and
movements in high realism that hark back to that kind of treatment of
subject matter.  I think the reason I feel this way is that those artists
focused on, reproduced, and in effect glorified every single aspect of the
subject, down to the most minute detail.  The resulting work was in many
cases a beautiful orchestration of an almost incomprehensible number of
components which came together to construct a representation of reality so
perfect as to change the experience of reality altogether.  When I listen
carefully to GG's playing, especially of Bach pieces, his flawlessly
evenhanded attention to every portion of the music creates, for me, a whole
that is as beautiful and impossible to quantify as those paintings.  Any of
you see what I see?


Veronica Xavier
vxavier@sfsu.edu