The Yamaha recordings

[Jim Morrison <jim_morrison@sprynet.com>]

John Hill wrote

>
> I think the CD318 vs. Yamaha is pretty easy, because the Yamaha was
> procured specifically for the '81 Goldbergs.  I believe it was also used
> on all of the subsequent Sony recordings done before GG's death.
> I'm pretty sure that it makes its debut on the '81 Goldbergs.
>
>

If this is the case, then, according to the recording dates listed at the
back of Friedrich's book, the following were made on the Yamaha:

Goldbergs, April/May 1981

Beethoven Sonata 13 in Eb Major, Op 27, No 1, Aug 1981
(I'm a bit puzzled by this entry because on my Beethoven CD, this Sonata is
list as having been recorded on Sept 4,1979.)

Italian Concerto, Aug 1981

Brahms Ballades, Op 10,  Feb 1982

Brahms Rhapsodies, Op 79, June/July 1982

Strauss Sonata B minor, Op 5, Sept 1982.


Also worth mentioning is the note on page 249 of the Selected Letters which
says that the Goldbergs and the Haydn Sonatas were recorded on a Yamaha.

I'm listening to the Haydn right now and it sounds like a "lean" (much
better word than "thin") Yamaha to me.

These Haydn Sonatas were recorded between Oct 1980 and May 1981 all in
DDD format.  In fact, his first recordings on the Sony DDD machine.

Listen to the "Spielt Nicht Bach" CD (My prized copy is in German)
The first track is a Brahms Rhapsody, which sounds like a Yamaha to me,
which it probably is.
The next is the Gibbons Allemande, clearly a different piano, that wonderful
CD 318 as a matter of fact in one of its best performances.
The third track is from a Haydn Sonata, which sounds like the Yamaha to me.
The fourth track is from  C. P. B. Bach's Wurrenberg Sonata, which sounds
like we're back to a Steinway.  It was recorded in 1968 so it probably is.

Also, listen to the beginning of track 3, the Haydn piece, and then listen
to the beginning of track 9, from the Strauss Sonata, both up-tempo
introductions in what I hear as similar styles of music.  While the Strauss
is certainly less "dry" than the Haydn, I
suspect they are both recorded on a similar piano, that is, a Yamaha.

Now listen to track 10, the Turkish March.  To my ears it sounds like a
different sort of instrument than we hear on the Strauss, Brahms, and Haydn.


So what I'm trying to say is that regardless of Friedrich's entertaining
story about Gould walking the streets of New York looking for a new piano to
record the 81 Goldbergs, I think he had already used a Yamaha (probably the
same
Yamaha) on the Haydn
discs, which were recorded earlier than the Goldbergs.

I'm not saying Gould didn't find that Goldberg Yamaha the way Friedrich says
it happened.  All evidence I've found points to his having done it that way.

Ostwald says of the used Yamaha "He liked it so much that he immediately
bought it and ordered it shipped to the Columbia studio for his Goldberg
Variations."

Robert Silverman, on page 146 of Glenn Gould Variations, claims he was the
man that told Gould to go to that shop and "Later [Gould] recorded most of
the
new Goldberg and the Haydn sonatas on the Yamaha."

 (Why does he say most?  What parts weren't recorded on the Yamaha?  I think
he means some of the Haydn Sonatas were not recorded on that Yamaha, which
as you'll see later, I suspcet is true.)



Friedrich's chapter on the 81 Goldbergs makes it sound like the recording
was quickly made after the purchase of the Yamaha, as if the purchase was
all part of his New York Goldberg recording trip.   In fact, the Goldberg
recording took place
two months after the purchase of the Yamaha.

According to
Silverman, Gould recorded (some of?) the Haydn sonatas on THAT Yamaha.  The
recording
dates for the Haydn Sonatas are almost all prior to the 81 Goldbergs.  The
only exception
coming from the Sonata in C Major, Hob XVI: 48, a some of which, but only
some, and I don't
know which parts those are, recorded on May 29, 1981, 15 days after the last
Goldberg session.

It's interesting to see Friedrich sites the story of buying the used
Yamaha "according to Robert Silverman" because if I'm reading this Silverman
article correctly, he wasn't even with Gould when Gould found the Yamaha.
He didn't meet Gould in person until mid-July of 1981, and the 81 Goldbergs
were recorded April/May 1981.  Silverman wasn't on that trip to the piano
store; nor does he ever say that he was.
Who was with Gould?  Where did that information come from?  The salespeople?

If we look at the date from a letter at the Glenn Gould Archive at the NLC,
we can see that Gould must have bought this piano around late-February 1981,
two months before the Goldbergs were recorded, and right at the time most of
the Haydn Sonatas were recorded.


File no. / No du dossier: 36 18 4
Series / Séries: Correspondence, incoming
Author/composer / Auteur/compositeur: Ostrovsky, Deborah Ostrovsky Piano &
Organ, New York, USA
Title / Titre: Gould, Glenn
Contents / Contenu: details re Gould purchase of Yamaha grand piano 1983300
Date: 1981 Mar 2
Medium / Média: typescript
Pages: 2 leaves

All but two of the Six Haydn Sonatas (Tracks 1-5 on disc two recorded
October 13th and 14th 1980) were recorded during or after late-February
1981, that is, right after the purchase of the Yamaha.  And if we can
beleive Friedrich's story about the piano being rushed over to Columbia
Studios, and Silveman's claim that some, but not all of the Haydn Sonatas
were recorded on the Goldberg Yamaha, it sure starts to look, to me at
least, that Gould had the Haydn Sonatas in mind, as well as the Goldbergs,
when he bought the Yamaha.

I think Friedrich did us a disservice by presenting the purchase of the
Yamaha the way he did.  The same goes for Ostwald.  I think we should know
more about Gould's recording on the Yamaha and his first digital recordings,
those Haydn Sonatas.  The Haydn Sonata recordings were his first adventure
into digital recording, not the Goldbergs, as well as being recorded on a
Yamaha.

Later, I'm going to give those Haydn Sonatas a careful listen in an attempt
to hear a change in the piano.
To my tired ears it sounds like there is a change of instruments on Disc Two
from track 5 to track 6, that is from a recording made on October 1980 prior
to the purchase of the Goldberg Yamaha and a recording made in
late-February/early March 1981, right at the time of the purchase of the
Yamaha.  (Should we start calling the Yamaha "1983300?" So much less stylish
than CD 318.)

Anyone else's ears tell them the same thing?




Jim