Re: Rachmaninoff?

[Greg Romero <gregory.romero@yale.edu>]

     Are you by any chance related to that MGamber person who thought so
highly of this list about two weeks ago?  The grammar that you use and
your intellectual posturing reminds me somewhat of him. 
If so, please stop these really bad posts.  If not, keep working on the
old c# Prelude and all those wonderful Etudes-Tableaux.  This is my last
post on Rachmaninoff.   Thank you.



> It is such a change from wondering about what haemorrhoid ointment Gould
> might have used while sitting on his non-ergonomic chair; what biscuit he
> might have consumed with what strange beverage; or, as now, what
> contraindications and side-effects might have been published at the time he
> was living about the medications he used.  The latter subject is of
> historical interest if only to demonstrate how much further knowledge has
> been accumulated about drugs since his time.> 
> I thought I was rather circumspect using the conditional voice or whatever
> in talking about "the voice of a spoilt brat".  The person who responded to
> me is correct.  I should have checked with him or her first to see whether
> he or she was a spoilt brat, a spoilt non-brat, or a non-spoilt non-brat.  I
> did not regard what I wrote as an accusation or a personal attack.  Anyway,
> it was pretty mild.
> 
> I agree that Gould never said he did not like Rachmaninoff - at least, based
> on the sources I have at my disposal.  But the fact he did not play
> Rachmaninoff suggests something.  Oh, I forgot.  I'm not supposed to mention
> Rachmaninoff - another of my personal heroes - again.  Except to say that I
> agreed with the comments made about poor David Helfgott.  I am afraid his
> recorded performances of Rachmaninoff works are extremely disappointing to
> put it mildly and he is hardly a fitting musical ambassador for Australia
> (or is that too elitist and politically incorrect?).  My music teacher
> attended a concert by him here in Canberra a few months ago and seemed to be
> rather impressed.  He did say, at the time, that Helfgott did things with
> the second sonata which he had never heard done before.  Well, I would go
> along with that.  He does things that one would not ever want done to the
> second sonata - even if one hated it.
> 
> Finally, I am surprised that anyone could have been insulted by my comment
> that those who take on all the opinions and prejudices of Gould are pathetic
> - perhaps bordering on the pathological.  Such a comment could only be
> viewed as insulting by somebody who has, in fact, taken on all the
> opinionsand prejudices of Gould at the expense of their own identity and
> self-worth.  This could not apply to anyone on the list so there is nobody
> to insult.
> 
> To get back to more Gouldian matters - as opposed to musical - what was
> Gould's opinion on taking L-tryptophan as a sedative?
> 
> Leon Le Leu
> Australia
>