Comparing Goldbergs

[barney]

And talking about transcriptions this may be the most popular the Goldberg Variations has ever had other than the piano. It was made by Dmitry Sitkovetsky for string trio. It is definitely well done but a very different work emerges, sounding not unlike Mozart´s great Divertimento K.563. It is very successful, there are more than 6 recordings available, but I like this one with gut strings.

I've never heard this version. I'll keep an eye out for it, thanks. Obviously there are lots of transcriptions of mujsical works from orchestral to instrumental and vice versa. Perhaps the most famous, in that both versions remain extremely popular, is Pictures at an Exhibition. For some years I have preferred the piano to orchestral accounts. Any views?

PS: if there's any interest in this discussion, and if hasn't already been much debated in the past, perhaps it should be its own thread. I don't want to distract us.

[josé echenique]

<The pendulum will swing in the opposite direction and Gould's "willfully idiosyncratic" style will come back into fashion, and we'll see some pretty shocking--and hopefully thrilling--liberties taken with hallowed scores. Sounds vulgar now, but I suspect when the time comes, we'll all be getting little bored and be ready for some more adventurous approaches.>

Will we ever hear again a Messiah like Beecham´s -with every instrument imaginable- or a ST. Matthew-Passion like Klemperer´s with Brucknerian tempi?

Not very often I think.

[Mookalafalas]

Will we ever hear again a Messiah like Beecham´s -with every instrument imaginable- or a ST. Matthew-Passion like Klemperer´s with Brucknerian tempi?

Not very often I think.

Never say never I don't think it's right around the corner or anything, but tastes will change. HIP has brought a lot of vigor back to the core repertoire, in my opinion, but eventually it will become a kind of straight jacket. Perhaps classical is in the same kind of death spiral that jazz fell into--a split into a "modern" sound that turns most people off, and an exaggerated reverence for the artists of the past that freeze-dries them into immobility. If it's going to survive as anything other than a kind of musically mummified nostalgia industry, it's going to have to shake things up somehow, and my guess is the direction will be more flexibility in interpretation. It will take a couple of exciting and charismatic figures emerging, however, who can break through the hide-bound, knee-jerk criticism that usually attacks any serious tradition bending.
Obviously this is just wild speculation on my part, but this is my guess.

[Chalkperson]

When Gould gets going, it's like he has three hands, and the interior melodic lines really shine. In general I much prefer Perahia, but when Gould connects with Bach, it's magical.

Well said. One often combines mixed emotions with Gould. No one separates the voices as clearly as Gould and reveals the inner workings but he is often wilfully idiosyncratic, cf Beethoven sonatas.

Barney, I love your prose and your comments about Gould. "Willfully idiosyncratic" - I love this expression - describes this perfectly and this is the problem many people have with Gould. It often becomes more Gould than Bach. It's OK to talk about poetic interpretations but, in the age of HIP, I would have thought that fidelity to the score is an important aesthetic consideration and I'm not sure Gould ticks all the boxes here.

I gather that he was generally like this in his whole life, thanks to information I'm getting from somebody who is reading his biography. In many ways he was a sad individual - lonely, self-centered and completely lacking empathy: in short, those skills which are fundamental to understanding and interpreting music, paradoxically enough.

If he were here, which he's not, I think Glenn would call his own playing (at least of Bach ) to be blissfully idiosyncratic...

....and in the most ultra-serious, sententious manner ... sans humour!!

Have you ever listened to his wonderful set of Haydn discs...

He had great sense of humor, but, Classical Music is Serious Music, and Gould took that seriously, but not literally. His Mozart is so funny i'd call it insane, only a nutcase would have played it in such a way...

Have you ever watched 32 Short Films about Glenn Gould? It tells you a lot about Gould, and in a very Gouldian way...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twV8YZut2nw

[jbuck919]

Have you ever watched 32 Short Films about Glenn Gould? It tells you a lot about Gould, and in a very Gouldian way...

I second the recommendation.

Completely off topic, but I've always thought that Gould bore a striking resemblance to the actor Michael Strong.

[jbuck919]

Having done my best to take this off topic, here is Gustav Leonhardt's 1965 rendition of the Goldberg Variations, which as a I said was the first performance I ever heard. Some people will stop listening at the first variation, because it (along with a number of others) is so much slower than what we are used to from many other performances. I'm not sure this is fair to Leonhardt's overall conception of the work. As a bonus, you get to look at the original edition, and if you are a keyboard person, imagine yourself actually performing from it.

On the matter of two manuals, note that variation 4 only requires them so that they can be coupled for a full sound, which is mimicked on the piano by the expedient of playing louder. In variation 5 they are optional; so much for simple hand crossings being an issue. I'm sure there's more intricate stuff later on, but those are my observations for now.

[Tarantella]

Thanks, John B, for posting this! Indeed they are slower but it's a pleasure to have more 'clarity' (for want of a better word) with the inner parts. One can actually hear Bach's 'workings' and that's something you just don't necessarily get with the piano versions.

BTW, is it possible to actually play these on the organ? I wonder how these would sound?

[Tarantella]

[/quote]
Have you ever listened to his wonderful set of Haydn discs...

He had great sense of humor, but, Classical Music is Serious Music, and Gould took that seriously, but not literally. His Mozart is so funny i'd call it insane, only a nutcase would have played it in such a way...

Have you ever watched 32 Short Films about Glenn Gould? It tells you a lot about Gould, and in a very Gouldian way...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twV8YZut2nw[/quote]

Actually, there's no evidence in the Gould biography that he had a sense of humour. I feel sure this would have been explored or, at the very least, suggested. The biography does say he had Asperger's Syndrome and the lack of empathy and eye contact and other social maladjustments would suggest this (according to my sister who is reading the biography, and she's a practicing Psychologist). Of itself, this is irrelevant to his work as a musician but it does give an additional complexity to our understanding of Gould. Perhaps it explains his antipathy about public performance because he didn't like people!!

I haven't seen the 32 Short Films.... but have certainly heard about this.

[jbuck919]

BTW, is it possible to actually play these on the organ? I wonder how these would sound?

I have a vague memory that I have come across it being done. (Now someone will find a YouTube of it. ) However, I can't see it working except in forced circumstances. Organ music assumes an acoustic ambiance that is inimical to most harpsichord music. I doubt that Bach ever knew an organ that did not enjoy a four-second or more reverberation, though many modern organs occupy a much dryer acoustic (often disastrously). I can see playing the Goldberg on a two-manual practice organ in a small studio with basic registration and no reverb at all (I played such sometimes in grad school), but that's what I mean by forced circumstances. I'm not sure why anyone would want to make a purposeful document out of such a performance.

[Chalkperson]

Of course Gould had a sense of humor, his characters, his self interviews, his tv show.

Or are you and your sister putting that all down to him being ironic.

If so I just used the wrong word...

[Chalkperson]

BTW, is it possible to actually play these on the organ? I wonder how these would sound?

I have a vague memory that I have come across it being done. (Now someone will find a YouTube of it. ) However, I can't see it working except in forced circumstances. Organ music assumes an acoustic ambiance that is inimical to most harpsichord music. I doubt that Bach ever knew an organ that did not enjoy a four-second or more reverberation, though many modern organs occupy a much dryer acoustic (often disastrously). I can see playing the Goldberg on a two-manual practice organ in a small studio with basic registration and no reverb at all (I played such sometimes in grad school), but that's what I mean by forced circumstances. I'm not sure why anyone would want to make a purposeful document out of such a performance.

None other than Elena Barshai recorded the Goldberg Variations for Organ...

She of course is Mrs Barshai, wife of Rudy...

[Chalkperson]

Here it is on YouTube, you just gotta know who to look for, I always enjoyed her reading. I have a second, by Gunter Rost, a recent recording, but not as light a touch...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5g8W31XnzI

[jbuck919]

Not bad. In fact, I think I'll ditch the Grigny I was going to play tomorrow morning for the prelude and play this instead (just kidding).

The second variation is actually played on two manuals with the left hand using a 16 foot stop, i.e., an octave underlay. But it is not consistent, because for some reason she jumps up to the other manual for the bass line in a couple of spots. Not saying this is wrong, just odd. And that's as far as I got tonight.

[Chalkperson]

Not bad. In fact, I think I'll ditch the Grigny I was going to play tomorrow morning for the prelude and play this instead (just kidding).

The second variation is actually played on two manuals with the left hand using a 16 foot stop, i.e., an octave underlay. But it is not consistent, because for some reason she jumps up to the other manual for the bass line in a couple of spots. Not saying this is wrong, just odd. And that's as far as I got tonight.

It makes me very happy to be able to give you something organic, we share a mutual love for the instrument.

I got the disc on a Brilliant Classics at the same time I got her husband's box set, him being quite a transcription it's himself.

She also recorded the Vivaldi organ concertos as transcribed by Bach, but let Lance tell you all about those, from CMG in 2006

http://www.classicalmusicguide.com/view ... =8&t=13958