Your Thoughts On Glenn Gould/Bach?

[mikeweil]

"Bullshitting" is too harsh a judgement - every generation approaches all types of music their own way, and what Bernstein did was in line with what was known about interpreting a Bach score, but he didn't know certain things that historically informed performance practice found out during the last fifty years. Some things he already knew, like the fact that it is wrong to play the string parts with continuous legato. But he is wrong in that he, like most "conventionally" trained musicians still tend to think, in adapting interpretational approaches that were developped in the late 19th century and that were based on Viennese classical music, to pre-1950 music - e.g. in Bach's time "allegro" did not give time signature "fast" - the tempo was given in the time signature, the tempo giusto, and "allegro" meant to increase that tempo to a certain degree. Their tempo of the first movement of that piano concerto is much too slow. 

Gould's obsession with clarity of the lines is based on the fact that except for register changes, the harpsichord has no volume dynamics. All voices are supposed are too be heard equally. That meant having only one string player per part, btw. The dynamics are achieved by the interplay of the instruments and the keyboard voicings. That's all you need. Of course you have a different balance with gut strings and historical bowing techniques. And you have to play a type of harpsichord like Bach had, which, surprisingly, is rarely done even by "historically informed" players. They, too, are subject to their own taste, often too much, I think - Bach's son Carl Philipp Emanuel once stated, that "hitting the notes properly" (i.e. to play properly in time) was sufficient - he associated other means of expressive keyboard playing with later styles. That clarity is the "correct" part of Gould's playing, and his obsession with counterpoint - the latter is shared by many, including Gustav Leonhardt. 

Historically informed performance practice does not mean to try to play like Bach did - nobody could do that, not even his sons, who were closest to this. It means taking all the knowledge that we now have into account, regarding tempos, instruments, playing techniques, embellishments, etc. and try to make lively music with all this in mind, or rather, prepare your performance with it. Basically, that's what Bernstein and Gould did, with their knowledge. That's why some say, period performance is bullshit. But this underemphasizes what to me is the most important factor: sound - which was different in each era. Sound encompasses the instrument, tuning systems, acoustics. ensemble size. Then comes rhythm and tempo.

I enjoyed watching Gould's tv series back in the day, and learned a lot from them. His rhythmic clarity was a refreshing voice in comparison to overly "romantic" approaches. Especially for someone used to the more strict timing of jazz and rock music. But from 1980 on I started listening to period performances with my partner of those years, and together we explored the music anew. Even today new facts are found out every month, and others taken for granted are questioned. There are too many aspects of the process than can be mentioned here ....

To give my answer to one of the question aked above, by people seem to either love or hate Gould's playing: I think it's because they do not like his rhythmic accuracy and miss the many "expressive" means of other pianists leaning more towards a romantic piano tradition.

Edited August 8, 2018 by mikeweil

[Larry Kart]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

I'm trying to understand what, in general, it is about Gould that those who don't enjoy him, Is it the sense of a-historical perfomrance practice, is it that it just sounds ugly, what is it, exactly, apart from simply "not liking it"? Is it Gould in general or is it Gould doing Bach like he does?

Wondering how/if this would/could fit into a Bach/Tristano/ego vs id thing. It seems to me that there's a least a thread of thought to begin to engage in there?

To the degree that Gould's way of playing Bach is a-historical, I have no big problem with that, although as I said before I think that Gould's approach is itself historical -- a personal offshoot of the anti-romantic, "objective" (viz. Jim's invocation in a previous post of Gould's "scientific objectivity") approach to playing Bach that began to emerge after World War I, as part and parcel of the general anti-romantic approach of much artistic modernism of all sorts. As for the personal side of Gould's music-making, one aspect of it may have been that he had (I believe from the get-go) a remarkable ability -- digital and mental -- to differentiate contrapuntal lines. Thus, the music of a quintessentially contrapuntal composer like Bach was something that he would tend to see and interpret through the lens of his own primary and abiding gift. Further, and this is particularly true of his first Columbia recording of the Goldberg Variations, the recording that made him a star, there was the motoric "peppiness" (if you will) with which he frequently amped up  the tempos of passages that many previous performers had taken at a more measured pace.

Compare, for example, Gould's playing of the Allemande from the French Suite No. 5 to the other two performances of the Allemande I posted alongside Gould's above.  React however you're inclined, but it's hard not to feel that Gould's reading of the Allemande is almost a different piece of music -- not only because, as I've said before, he more or less pecks at it in terms of accentuation/articulation but also because the whole "breath rhythm" (so to speak) of the piece  has been Gould-ized into a series of brief motoric gasps and leaps. Indeed, I came to feel over time that this particular kind of short-breathed rapidity was so typical  of Gould's musical inclinations that many of the more rapid passages in his Bach recordings began to sound alike. That probably accounts for my eventual weariness with Gould's Bach, after having had my socks knocked  off by his Goldbergs back in 1955 -- his Bach is a good deal more of a piece, more uniform, than (as I've learned from many other performances) Bach is.

Interesting that you should mention Tristano. I vaguely recall that Gould had something to say about Lennie at one point -- positive or negative I don't recall (I'll see if I can find it). 

Here it is: "… in my teens I went through a period when it was very 'in’ to see profundities in Lennie Tristano, and I tried, so help me, I tried, but I never succeeded." 

[JSngry]

11 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

 

Interesting that you should mention Tristano. I vaguely recall that Gould had something to say about Lennie at one point -- positive or negative I don't recall (I'll see if I can find it). 

Here it is: "… in my teens I went through a period when it was very 'in’ to see profundities in Lennie Tristano, and I tried, so help me, I tried, but I never succeeded." 

I wasn't in any way thinking of Tristano/Gould in terms of actual personal interaction. just a braoder consideration of ego vs id in the musical process. I think there's no small validity to Tristano's observations there, the whole notion of "pure music" as an ideal, and I wonder if that could be looped around to Gould's concepts.

Mental masturbation, perhaps.

[JSngry]

Just found this quote, no idea how accurate it is or from what context it comes, but when I was referencing "science" earlier as it pertains to how Gould's Bach is striking me, here it is:

[Alexander Hawkins]

17 hours ago, mikeweil said:

To add another view to the discussion, please listen to this recording by Luca Gugliemi on exact copies of the Cristofori and Silbermann fortepianos known to Bach:

Tracklist:

I have no idea what and how much Gould knew (or, at the state of knowledge of his time, could have known) about the piano sound Bach was familiar with, but this might give you an idea what it really was - sometimes Gould comes close with his soundideal. With all that was researched after him: some of his ideas are pretty far from 18th century performance practice. Davitt Moroney, in a post last year on the harpsichord mailing list, had a lot of criticism about the performers, who, like Gould, play the entrances of fugue subjects with too much emphasis. What comes after them was much more interesting ...

Thanks for this - hadn't heard it!

[king ubu]

Thanks all for this thread!

I continue to be amazed by Gould's Bach (and Beethoven and other stuff, too), exactly because of what Larry chose the word "pecking" for. I adore the clarity and no-nonsensicalness of his approach when playing Bach solo (and the same applies to his album of English consort musicke - I know it's totally "wrong" in many aspects, but it's so darn good, why should I care?) ... I am always annoyed, when Bach performances are blurry (not when they are bubbly, mind me -- Blandine Rannou is fine with me, to name just one different and more contemporary approach). I want to hear the lines and the tones, I want to hear the architecture I guess, the structure.

[Larry Kart]

6 hours ago, JSngry said:

Just found this quote, no idea how accurate it is or from what context it comes, but when I was referencing "science" earlier as it pertains to how Gould's Bach is striking me, here it is:

Very revealing perhaps. By contrast, this from Rosen: "This inability [of keyboard instruments] to make in practice the clear-cut distinctions [among contrapuntal lines] that were made in theory embodied the tendency toward toward a completely unified texture and the powerful vertical harmonic force that characterized so much of the early eighteenth century...."

I'll add that Gould's quote, in conjunction with that passage from Rosen, perhaps give me a clue to the nature and origin of Gould's approach as an interpreter. Given his aforementioned digital and mental gift for realizing contrapuntal lines, and given, as Rosen claims, the gap in Bach's time between theoretical contrapuntal distinctions and the ability of keyboard instruments to make those distinctions (which Rosen says led to unified textures and the advent of powerful vertical harmonic forces), Gould (because of the horizontal texture of the sort of musical discourse that he  temperamentally favored and  that he could strikingly realize) proceeded to interpret (to some degree reshape?) Bach's music in that image.

Another thought: There is, I think, a moralistic, even dictatorial, strain in Gould's "every note has to have a past and a future on the horizontal plane." (My emphasis). Remembering that Gould was something of a Schoenberg devotee and himself wrote Schoenbergian music, one thinks of such dicta from the early days of so-called Serialism as no octave doubling, no recurrence of any pitch in a piece until every other pitch in the series had been sounded, etc. IIRC Schoenberg circle composers who failed to obey those rules were more or less banished from the temple, though of course S. in later years failed to comply with those rules himself. In any case, Gould's privileging (horrible term -- sorry) of the "past and ... future on the horizontal plane" standard for proper musical discourse does induce a certain shiver, at least in me.

[JSngry]

Sorry to hear of your shivers, don't hesitate to see a doctor if they continue.

Seriously, I guess that would be one way to look at it, but, no surprise, I'm not ready to go there with that. All music carries with it the "baggage" of its time (both past and future on the horizontal plane), but at some point, baggage is assimilated and is no longer baggage, it's skin.

I do think that, to quote Mr. Hawkins above:

I think so much of the magic of Bach is that there are so many ways to play it; and that however personal, idiosyncratic, (in-)authentic or whatever the playing, it still always sounds like Bach...

There's a reason for that, and as much as I'm willing to bet on anything of this nature, I would wager pretty big large that it's because of Bach's science, be it intuitive, partially glommed, or full frontal genius realization. It's like you can't break this guy, no matter what you do to it in a Newtonian realm, it still stands. It still stands. And I bet you'd be hard pressed to break it by quantum means (i.e. - multi-planar de/re-construction) short of downright destroying it and not allowing it a chance to come back together.

No matter where the implications of that take an individual, ok. But as far as the base notion that Bach is scientifically rock-solid sound as "pure music" (or science), the only shiver I'm feeling is one of awe. There are very, very few musics that are that omnidirectionally sound. In fact, the only one that reflexively comes to mind is Bird. Beethoven, maybe, Louis (in theory, anyway).

Ultimately, Bach is bigger than anything as petty as temporal divides. At least to this point.

[Ted O'Reilly]

Off-topic a bit, but has anyone ever heard of any opinion whatever by Gould on Jacques Loussier's Bach efforts?  Even though Gould was a neighbour of mine once (saw him, never exchanged a word) he might have once said something, might he not?

[Larry Kart]

25 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Sorry to hear of your shivers, don't hesitate to see a doctor if they continue.

Seriously, I guess that would be one way to look at it, but, no surprise, I'm not ready to go there with that. All music carries with it the "baggage" of its time (both past and future on the horizontal plane), but at some point, baggage is assimilated and is no longer baggage, it's skin.

I do think that, to quote Mr. Hawkins above:

I think so much of the magic of Bach is that there are so many ways to play it; and that however personal, idiosyncratic, (in-)authentic or whatever the playing, it still always sounds like Bach...

There's a reason for that, and as much as I'm willing to bet on anything of this nature, I would wager pretty big large that it's because of Bach's science, be it intuitive, partially glommed, or full frontal genius realization. It's like you can't break this guy, no matter what you do to it in a Newtonian realm, it still stands. It still stands. And I bet you'd be hard pressed to break it by quantum means (i.e. - multi-planar de/re-construction) short of downright destroying it and not allowing it a chance to come back together.

No matter where the implications of that take an individual, ok. But as far as the base notion that Bach is scientifically rock-solid sound as "pure music" (or science), the only shiver I'm feeling is one of awe. There are very, very few musics that are that omnidirectionally sound. In fact, the only one that reflexively comes to mind is Bird. Beethoven, maybe, Louis (in theory, anyway).

Ultimately, Bach is bigger than anything as petty as temporal divides. At least to this point.

I don't doubt the weight and significance of Bach's "science" whatsoever. But I'm reluctant to regard Gould's supposed "scientific objectivity" in the same light, preferring to regard his approach as, to quote Mr. Hawkins, "personal, idiosyncratic" (terms that don't jibe that well with "scientific objectivity, no?) Yes, it still always sounds like Bach, but the approaches of other performers to Bach please me much more, make more sense to me, and also (to claim what cannot be proved) sound more like Bach.

[JSngry]

No arguments regarding personal preferences, of course not. You've contributed mightily to my broader understanding here, so thank you for that. I was hoping for something along these lines, actually, you and everybody else who has voiced their perspectives, Most satisfying thread results I've had here in a loooong time!

Still, not wanting to leave well-enough alone...

I'm reluctant to regard Gould's supposed "scientific objectivity" in the same light, preferring to regard his approach as, to quote Mr. Hawkins, "personal, idiosyncratic" (terms that don't jibe that well with "scientific objectivity, no?)

Actually...yes? No doubt many ideas that are considered personal/idiosyncratic at their initial submission eventually turn "science" once/when/if proven over time and repeated testing. Monk, Pres, Ayler to add to the list of Bird).

Also, do these contradict or reinforce each other?

 

[mikeweil]

Larry, what is your source for Rosen's remarks - iis it in his book "The Classical Style" or elsewhere - I'd like to read the full text. Thanks in advance.

[Larry Kart]

14 hours ago, mikeweil said:

Larry, what is your source for Rosen's remarks - iis it in his book "The Classical Style" or elsewhere - I'd like to read the full text. Thanks in advance.

They come from his chapter "Bach and Handel" in the 1972 Pelican paperback "Keyboard Music" (ed. Denis Matthews, other chapters are by other writers). Reissued in this form:

https://www.amazon.com/Keyboard-Music-Denis-Matthews/dp/0800844564/ref=sr_1_18?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1533864237&sr=1-18&keywords=denis+matthews

[uli]

6 hours ago, Ted O'Reilly said:

Off-topic a bit, but has anyone ever heard of any opinion whatever by Gould on Jacques Loussier's Bach efforts?  Even though Gould was a neighbour of mine once (saw him, never exchanged a word) he might have once said something, might he not?

read that he sed'" Play Bach is a good way to play Bach."

[mikeweil]

14 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

They come from his chapter "Bach and Handel" in the 1972 Pelican paperback "Keyboard Music" (ed. Denis Matthews, other chapters are by other writers). Reissued in this form:

https://www.amazon.com/Keyboard-Music-Denis-Matthews/dp/0800844564/ref=sr_1_18?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1533864237&sr=1-18&keywords=denis+matthews

Thanks - was able to find a cheap used copy.

[Ted O'Reilly]

12 hours ago, uli said:

read that he sed'" Play Bach is a good way to play Bach."

Thanks!

[JSngry]

From the liner notes of the Sony Classics edition of WTC 1:

"You could take, to give you one problem for me, the F minor Fugue from the first volume of the Forty-Eight, which I am just now preparing to record, and find two absolutely satisfying ways to play it", Gould explained in around 1963 in a fictional interview with a certain David Johnson (who was none other than one of Gould's multiple personae). "The only qualification there is that since one has to play it, for recording purposes, with the accompanying prelude, that may throw some light on the decision. The version I've just committed to tape in a preliminary way is done extremely slowly, with pointillistic phrases every two notes in the subject, a la Webern, until you get to the last ones, where I put 'tenutos' and 'marcatos', apostrophes as it were, over each note. This is the way it now stands, but I am not entirely happy with it.There is a good case for doing this piece in a much more free-flowing 'legato' fashion, and this would change the character of the fugue entirely. And there are reasons that make this extremely applicable because the fugue [...], however remarkable a piece, doesn't teach one a special lesson in counterpoint or in how to adjust voices. And for that reason there is not the necessity of presenting it to contemporary ears as an important problem in that kind of contrapuntal adjustment. That's one argument. It spends a lot of time in A-flat and in D-flat major, which are obviously close relations to F minor but at the same time are relatively frolicsome. [...] That's another argument. And so the Dixieland beat in this comes off surprisingly well, but I'm not fully convinced by it. I think I'll do it again in a slightly less intense version of what I've done up til now, which is perhaps too slow." It may be added that Gould's second, published version of the F minor Fugue still reveals clear signs of the Webernesque phrasing which  he had adopted when recording it for the first time.

uh...whew! Dixieland beat. Somewhere in here there was a Dixieland beat. Or maybe the guy was a really good, and I mean good, dry, and I mean dry, humorist.

 

[Larry Kart]

Tnaks to this thread and a library sale, I'm now a proud owner of the DVD "Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould." Will report when I watch it if there's anything of interest.

[JSngry]

Saw it on Netflix a few years ago and was fascinated by it.

Are you expecting to discover anything than that he was a neurotic, brilliant geniusman who could probably mentally multitask better than 99% of anybody ever? And I mean that as a very real compliment, because whatever was going on inside him, he channeled it .Whoever else's problem it was, it sure wasnt't his!

 

Alex Trebek!

 

[Larry Kart]

15 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Saw it on Netflix a few years ago and was fascinated by it.

Are you expecting to discover anything than that he was a neurotic, brilliant geniusman who could probably mentally multitask better than 99% of anybody ever? And I mean that as a very real compliment, because whatever was going on inside him, he channeled it .Whoever else's problem it was, it sure wasnt't his!

 

Alex Trebek!

 

Have no particular expectations, though I do wonder if his girlfriends (several are said to be interviewed) looked like Petula Clark. BTW, I wonder if Gould also was a fan of Karen Carpenter.

[JSngry]

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/christopher-foss-grew-up-with-glenn-gould-but-never-got-to-say-goodbye/article4294730/

https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2007/08/25/the_secret_life_of_glenn_gould.html