Re: The Yamaha recordings

[John Hill <jphill@home.com>]

Jim Morrison wrote:

> I have an hypothesis to test.
>
> I think those two Haydn Sonatas Hob. XVI 50 and 51, Gould's first two
> adventures in digital recording, made in early October 1980 ,were neither
> recorded on the Goldberg Yamaha nor CD 318.  The recording was made months
> before Gould bought the Goldberg Yamaha and I'm assuming he wouldn't have
> had poor old CD 318 shipped down to NYC for a two day session.
>
> The question is, what piano is that?  A CBS studio piano?
>
> What do the other list members think?

Jim, you've done some excellent detective work on this!

Here's my hypothesis.  Everything done with Sony in NYC
post-Kazdin and post-Eaton Auditorium is probably *not*
done on CD318.  It is certainly possible that the new Yamaha
was put into service *before* the Goldbergs and that the
"shopping for a new piano" story just made a nice accompaniment
to the story of GG revisiting this magnum opus from his youth,
but who knows.  Accuracy with regard to technical details
has *not* been a strong suit for most of the GG biographers,
with the obvious exception of Kazdin.  Again, he was there.

I don't have any of the other NYC Sony releases from that
period, so I can't be of much help with the "golden ears" test.
I really should go out and get those recordings, although the
repertoire contained on them doesn't really float my boat
(plus, I'm not a big fan of early digital recordings, plus I'm
not a big fan of the sound of that particular Yamaha).

Of course, the only definitive answer will be to contact folks
at Sony and review the session logs for the recording dates.
These records do exist and they may not be as difficult to
access as it might seem.  In the meantime, the actual identity
of those pianos will remain a mystery.

cheers,
jh