new threads and old

[Jim Morrison <jim_morrison@sprynet.com>]

Hi F minor,

Anybody familiar with Gould's parody of Rubinstein's autobiography.

It's called Memories  of Maude Harbour, and can be found on page 290 of the
paperback edition of the Glenn Gould Reader.  I think it's one of the best
works in the book, though the self-interview (found also in an extract on 32
Short Films) may be his best.

Well I checked out that biography from the library Saturday and Gould really
has caught the feel of it.  Here's an excerpt from page 211

"Our farewell took place two days later at Sophia's again.  Pola cried, and
I was disconsolate; after she was gone, Sophia kept me for an hour, brought
some coffee, and tried to soothe me.  Finally, she forced me to go to the
piano and play my heart out.  That helped!  And I can state right now that
once again my music had the power to console and calm."

And this from page 412.


"I found nothing to say.  There was nothing I could do.  There was a long
silence.  And suddenly I took her in my arms, I kissed her.  I spoke to her
soothingly and stroked her hair tenderly.  I fell in love."


I'm listening to the clavichord recording of the Partitas right now and the
instrument has a softer, gentler sound than the harpsichord.  As might be
expected from an instrument whose volume only ranges from pianissimo to
piano.  Interesting, contemplative.  I'm sure there's more hear than meets
my novice ear.


Here's Gould on the Handel CD and what he had in mind when he recorded it,
found on page 50 of Conversations with Glenn Gould:

"...on the harpsichord you have a choice between rhythmic inexorability and
its converse, which is infinite rubato, a kind of sound world which really
never comes to rest on any bar line.  I was determined to try and find a way
around this problem.  And I thought, well, the best solution would be to
pretend that I'm not playing the harpsichord at all, because if I do
otherwise I'll fall exactly into the same trap. And I found as the sessions
wore no that that danger was very real indeed, because it's very very
difficult to play a straight square eight bars on the harpsichord without
making some rhythmic alterations in lieu of dynamics.  Sometimes indeed I
had to do that; sometimes there simply was no other way to shape a phrase.
In very chromatic writing like the beginning of the Variations of the big
D-Major Suite, you have to do something of the sort.  And again in the
cadenza-like Prelude of the A-Major Suite, you're got to differentiate
between all those scales and run-otherwise it does sound like a sewing
machine.  But that aside, once having hit the stride of a certain tempo, I
would like to be able to hold it almost as tightly as you can on a piano.

Question: Don't certain harpsichord pieces need exactly this kind of rubato
approach, like the works of Couperin, for example?

Oh yes.  I'm sure that's true. But Handel, at least to me, is a very regal
figure and needs a certain kind of straightforwardness and
uncomplicatedness, essentially, as well as an almost deliberate lack of
sophistication, and that would not be true of Couperin.  In any case, the
rubato that one applies to Couperin has more to do with social grace than
structure."


Good night and good morning,

Jim