Beethoven's Sixth

[Jim Morrison <jim_morrison@sprynet.com>]

Hello Fminor,

I just wanted to drop a little note to say I've been listening to Gould's
recording of Beethoven's Sixth symphony and I've come to think it's one of
his greatest discs and one of THE piano recordings, up there with Richter's
Mussorgsky, Horowitz's Scriabin and Rubinstein's Chopin.  He really makes
great, awesome use of the piano as a piano.  That first movement is one of
the most beautiful, warmest 12 minutes I've ever heard.

Highly recommended for those who have never heard it.  Much more succesful
in my opinion than the Fifth Symphony.

Gramaphone says this about the recording:

Its exceptional breadth is partly to allow Liszt's complicated textures time
to speak, and partly to convey a sense of quiet, accumulating inevitability.
Only in the Scherzo did my fingers drum with mild impatience. Elsewhere
Gould's characteristic rhythmic resilience and subtle polyphonic voicing are
spellbinding, and the Storm is a tour de force of pianistic control. This is
a performance of true intellectual passion-if you ever doubted that such a
thing can exist, you really should try to hear it.


Bye


Jim