GG: Show me the money (was Rachmaninoff, etc)

[adellaer@mail.cc.trincoll.edu (A.D. Dell'Aera)]

Leon Le Leu once said:

>As for the person who said "I hate hearing dollar signs instead of music!"
>might one read into that the voice of a spoilt brat?  Rachmaninoff had a
>family to feed and a lifestyle to maintain just like anyone else.  And one
>can read dollar signs into Bach just as easily as into Rachmaninoff - Bach
>had an even larger family to feed!  I cannot recall a single piece by
>Rachmaninoff where any impression is given of lust for money triumphing over
>artistic integrity.

Just think of the thread possibilities that would exist if GG recorded
Beethoven's "Rage over a lost penny"!

I've been listening to NPR's Cleveland Orchestra Concert with Solti
conducting Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, and the commentator reminded me
that Bartok received the commision for this work from Koussevitsky while
deathly ill.  The advance portion of the commission did him a world of
good, yet it would be ludicrous even to assert that he composed that
masterpiece solely for the money.  Likewise, I don't recall any instance of
GG recording any piece(s) to which he felt no artistic attatchment solely
for the money (GG's late Mozart sonatas, hardly bestsellers, were recorded
b/c  "the cycle had to be completed" and there's certainly nothing wrong
with that).  I remember that GG stated that if were ever suffering through
a deep financial hardship he could be persuaded to record cousin-Grieg's
crowd-pleasing Piano Concerto.   Alas,  I don't think he was ever serious
about his scheduled session with the Cleveland Orchestra to record it
(along with LvB's Concerto #2).

As far as Rachmaninoff is concerned, the only dollar signs one could
possibly associate with him is through that bloody RCA recording by David
Helfgott which, if I may be so bold, is an utter disgrace (rivaled only by
RCA's liner notes to the same recording).  This is less a statement about
DH than it is about his managers and his recording company, unfairly
raising him to a level to which he does not belong while profiting off his
recovery (surely they don't let him see the reviews of his recording or his
concerts).   Say what you will about GG's Mozart, I doubt he expected it to
be a commercial success.  There were no gimmicks attatched, no coincidental
movie or concert tour.  As was the case with GG's late Beethoven, he was
trying to offer a different conception of the pieces, even if it meant a
flagrant disregard for the score.  In these recordings there is a definite
amount of innovation, as though he were trying to say something new about
the music (even if what he said was usually derogatory).  In DH's
recording, there's nothing but sloppy, inconsistent playing (actually the
only thing consistent about his playing IS its sloppiness).   There seems
to be a lack of frankness about the DH phenomenon....certainly one cannot
say the same thing about GG and his plentifully blunt opinions  about
artists and composers (even Bach).

Just my two pennies' worth.

Tony