Re: GG: Mozart's 24th Piano Concerto

[Bruce Petherick <bpetherick@TOUCHCORP.COM>]

At 12:57 8/29/00 -0400, you wrote:
>         Hello  f_minors.
>
>         I recently acquired GG's recording of Mozart's 24th piano concerto ,
> with Walter Susskind conducting the CBC orchestra. I think it's a gripping,
> emotionally charged performance, with GG fully committed and not taking his
> (usual) ironic, detached stance towards Mozart.  Plus, his chrystalline
> articulation and bell-like tone serve the music perfectly. However, there is
> one controversial element of the performance -- GG interpolates a left-hand
> line at certain points when the score calls only for a right-hand passage.
> In fact, he accentuates some of these left-hand "inventions" more than the
> right-hand line. In the liner notes, GG is quoted as saying that the
> additions are appropriate because (according to GG) Mozart is known to have
> skimped on some left-handed accompaniment in the score, and to have filled
> in these "gaps" by improvisation in performance. GG likens it to a
> continuo-type function. After repeated listenings, I have gotten used to
> these interpolations and they actually heighten the drama (particularly when
> GG uses them at points where a solo piano passage is segue - ing into an
> orchestral passage). But -- whether they sound good or not -- does GG's
> justification for their inclusion actually conform to historical performance
> practice, or is this just another instance of his eccentricity running amok?


        There is a very vexed question as to whether or not this is
_historical_ performance practice or not.  There is absolutely no doubt
that Mozart improvised a lot in his performances of his piano concerti (as
did most performer/composers in the Nineteenth century - there is even
examples in this century with Prokofiev, Busoni etc).  A point also needs
to be made that the MS of these works were usually only for the composer's
use in their own performance, and so there are several points where
shorthand notation would have been used, or even left out, to be added in
on the night.
        The contrary point to the above, is that the contemporary
performance practice of our time is to venerate the "text" and not allow
any changes to the performance, even where this may not be historically
appropriate.  Performers such as Robert Levin are challenging this
assumption - he is to give a concert here in Melbourne tommorow night, I
think, by performing not only on historically-aware instruments and
articulation, but also improvising cadenzas and continuo parts in the
performance.
        Musically, or at least perceptivally, it should makes no
difference to a listener, as there are other aesthetic enjoyments that can
come from a various number of readings of a work - some that may work for
some people, and some that don't.  There are no performances that I dislike
of Glenn Gould's, but I often like my own better!

PS: I have been too quiet for too long.  Welcome back to me :->





Bruce Petherick
Application Architect
Touchcorp
ex- 24 hour emergency musicologist
Blame Canada!

bpetherick@touchcorp.com