RE: [F_minor] Something Old and Something Blue/Grey

["Houpt, Fred" <fred.houpt@rbc.com>]

Maybe strange but to my ears, totally compelling and delightful.  One of
GG's great abilities is to create the impression of very rapid, highly
controlled but somewhat explosive propulsion.  You hear this in his
Haydn as well in the Elizabethan music.  

That no one outside of the Harpsichordist world knows what to do with
the music means that they are not willing to spend the time to study the
period ornamentation and then work out the technical adaptations
necessary to play it on a huge grand piano.  GG did and for me at least
the interpretations are all golden.  Performers also ignored Richard
Strauss and after hearing him play it I, like him, could not understand
why?  Despite his questionable ornamentation choices, GG is always at
his core looking for insights and ways to embrace the joys of the
composition.  No one has really complained about his performances of any
music as pedestrian and just like anyone else's.  Thank goodness for
that.

Best regards,

Fred Houpt

 

-----Original Message-----
From: f_minor-bounces@email.rutgers.edu
[mailto:f_minor-bounces@email.rutgers.edu] On Behalf Of Brad Lehman
Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 1:52 PM
To: f_minor@email.rutgers.edu
Subject: Re: [F_minor] Something Old and Something Blue/Grey

Houpt, Fred wrote:
> On another topic I meant to write about, in last months BBC Music Mag 
> is a cover article/interview with Angela Hewitt.  Something she said 
> about GG just made me cringe.  She said that she could never 
> understand Gould's technique because it was just too crazy.  Crazy?  A

> day or so before reading this I listened in rapt joy as I enjoyed once

> again GG's recording of Elizabethan composers.  Crazy technique?  The 
> reason no one else tries this music is because they don't know what to
do with it.

The reason no one tries it ON PIANO is because they don't know what to
do with it.  Meanwhile, this music is daily bread for harpsichordists
like me.  :)  Using period fingerings in the passagework, too, because
it's eventually easier (just get used to it) and it sounds better that
way.

Gould's way with the ornamentation on that record was pretty strange....


Brad Lehman
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