10 days of Glenn Gould ... now playing each night.

[slofstra]

From Sept. 25 to October 4, 2007 CBC Radio 2 will feature a live concert each night from 8 to 10 PM ET in celebration of the life of Glenn Gould. Concerts will feature noted Canadian pianists Andre Laplante, Louis Lortie and Marc-Andre Hamelin.



Click on picture for detailed schedule.

You can listen to CBC Radio 2 on the Internet.
Click here and select program 'Canada Live'
Through time shifting this program available each night from 8 PM EST until 10 PM Pacific time.

And apparently, on Tuesday, Sept. 25, Sony is releasing a 70 CD retrospective of Gould's career, price around $250.00.

[Ken]

The series of Variations on Gould's initials, GEGD, are playing right now on Canada Live -- very interesting. I am looking forward to the remainder of this series.

[slofstra]

The series of Variations on Gould's initials, GEGD, are playing right now on Canada Live -- very interesting. I am looking forward to the remainder of this series.

Thanks for the reminder. I was going to listen to Brahms, but I've just put this on. Live piano concerts on the radio, this is great.

Ken, do you have any feeling about the value of the new 80 CD Gould set? It's tempting to me but it would represent a 10% expansion of my CD collection - by one performer.

[slofstra]

There is someone on now with a composition expressing his feelings about dead composers and their work. He's being very rough on the piano. Only in Canada, you say.

This program is working out extremely well. We've just heard 10 piano compositions commissioned in memory of Gould played live by 10 of Canada's foremost pianists in CBC Toronto's Glenn Gould studio.

Now we switch to Winnipeg to hear, I think, an off-beat program on the fugue.

[Chalkperson]

Ken, do you have any feeling about the value of the new 80 CD Gould set? It's tempting to me but it would represent a 10% expansion of my CD collection - by one performer.

I'm not Ken, but I don't think it's worth it...Gould's Bach and Haydn is really all you need, the Concerto discs are average, the Mozart and Beethoven are too mannered, and he's mannered to begin with...pick and choose, or wait a year till Sony have a zillion of these sets unsold in their warehouse, then it will cost a similar price ratio to the Stravinsky Box, which is reallly good value for money...buy the DVD's instead...

32 Short Films about Glenn Gould
The Goldberg Variations
Bruno Monsaingnen's films...

it's much more interesting to see him play, and in such contorted positions...if you are going to buy a big box, and you don't want La Callas, buy the Hyperion Schubert Leider Box, or Scott Ross's 32 discs of Scarlatti's Harpsichord music...

[slofstra]

Ken, do you have any feeling about the value of the new 80 CD Gould set? It's tempting to me but it would represent a 10% expansion of my CD collection - by one performer.

I'm not Ken, but I don't think it's worth it...Gould's Bach and Haydn is really all you need, the Concerto discs are average, the Mozart and Beethoven are too mannered, and he's mannered to begin with...pick and choose, or wait a year till Sony have a zillion of these sets unsold in their warehouse, then it will cost a similar price ratio to the Stravinsky Box, which is reallly good value for money...buy the DVD's instead...

32 Short Films about Glenn Gould
The Goldberg Variations
Bruno Monsaingnen's films...

it's much more interesting to see him play, and in such contorted positions...if you are going to buy a big box, and you don't want La Callas, buy the Hyperion Schubert Leider Box, or Scott Ross's 32 discs of Scarlatti's Harpsichord music...

You may be right, although I was chafing to buy this for a while. Anyway, I'm not looking for a big box of CDs just for the sake of having a big box of CDs. But there have been so many of them floating around lately. Regarding the Callas, I see they've divided the full set roughly in half into 'studio' and 'live', each at about half the price of the full set. So based on your recommendation, the 'studio' set would be the one to get, I believe. If I was to buy Callas.

Gould's Beethoven sonatas are pretty nuts. Apparently he disliked them so much, he decided to see just how fast he could play them. I very much like the 'Great Pianists' Gould set I have including Byrd, Gibbons, and so on. Corlyss' comments on Gibbons notwithstanding.

I'm just taken away with Gould's sheer genius which transcends the idiosyncracies. From what eminent orb do these individuals drop onto our planet: Schubert, Shostakovich, Gould, such stunning geniuses, and of course, they all struggle mightily because although their genius is usually recognized in lifetime (in spite of the Romantic myth that they are not), society, any society, never knows how to treat such talent.

But I think I'm going to focus on some singles again for a while. I've got hundreds of dollars in my Amazon cart and hesitate to pull the trigger on it. If I take out the Gould, it'll be more palatable. The cart includes some of the EM you've recommended. But I'm not buying the Dowland. Can't stand counter-tenors - they cause severe discomfort in the nether regions, if you get my drift.

[Chalkperson]

]

Regarding the Callas, I see they've divided the full set roughly in half into 'studio' and 'live', each at about half the price of the full set. So based on your recommendation, the 'studio' set would be the one to get, I believe. If I was to buy Callas.

Given your aversion to complete operas I would suggest you just buy the three early recital discs I reccomended in the Callas thread..my box arrived today, if I go without sleep I reckon I could listen to it all in a week...

But I'm not buying the Dowland. Can't stand counter-tenors - they cause severe discomfort in the nether regions, if you get my drift.

Castrati's suffer a little more I think...

[Corlyss_D]

Can't stand counter-tenors

Are you serious? You're cuttin' yourself (you should pardon the expression) out of a lot of great Baroque and EM.

[slofstra]

Lortie's virtuoso ode to Gould brought the house down

KEN WINTERS

September 29, 2007

Variations on Gould: Glenn Gould and the Art of Transcription

Louis Lortie, piano

At the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto on Wednesday

If the entirely unordinary pianist Glenn Gould was "about" anything, apart from the ecstasy he found in the music that interested him and his singular ways of communicating that ecstasy, he was about opening musical doors in the mind.

Gould sought emancipation from the rituals and benchmarks of classical keyboard performance which he felt had straitjacketed the essence of the music they were intended to convey, holding music down to "norms" that were powerless to release its potential to change our minds and our lives.

This year, we celebrate the 75th anniversary of his birth and commemorate the 25th anniversary of his death. Gould blazed through his short career (he retired from the concert platform into the recording studio at 32 and was dead at 50) astonishing, sometimes offending and often undermining our preconceptions of what keyboard performance should be. Musically, he was not quite an iconoclast - except, perhaps, in certain works of Mozart and Beethoven which he felt were worshipped too automatically and beyond their worth.

Usually he loved music too much simply to knock it on the head. But he could make pitiless fun of certain works the establishment holds holy. Conversely, he would be quite soft on others less blindly admired.

His contemporary, composer John Beckwith, once remarked that putting up with the young Gould's enthrallment with the music of Richard Strauss was like seeing a gifted child through mumps. (That enthrallment endured, however, and opened another door for some of us.)

Variations on Gould, conceived by CBC music producer Neil Crory, is currently opening mind-doors at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto's CBC Broadcasting Centre. Among other, more exotic entertainments, this series has given three top Canadian pianists the opportunity to visit and reinterpret three areas of Gould's wide-ranging repertoire. On Oct. 1, André Laplante will pay tribute to Gould's remarkable Russian debut 50 years ago. On Oct. 4, Marc-André Hamelin will play music of the first (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) and second (Alban Berg but, oddly, not Schoenberg or Webern) Viennese Schools, which Gould held dear.

On Wednesday, Louis Lortie made a dazzling and thought-provoking onslaught on another aspect of Gould's interest: transcriptions - arrangements, in this case for solo piano or, in one instance for two pianos, of music originally composed for other media. Lortie played J. S. Bach's transcription of Alessandro Marcello's Oboe Concerto in D Minor; Edvard Grieg's addition of a second piano part to Mozart's (solo) Piano Sonata No. 15, in F; Gould's transcription of Dawn and Siegfried's Rhine Journey from Wagner's opera Die Gotterdammerung; the premiere of Lortie's own transcription of the Moonlight Music and Final Scene from Richard Strauss's opera Capriccio; and Lortie's own transcription of Maurice Ravel's orchestral ballet score La Valse.

Lortie either honoured or gently satirized Gould's détaché finger work, sing-along style and mercurial swiftness in the outer movements of the Bach/Marcello. He played Grieg's added part to the Mozart Sonata along with Gould's 1973 recording of the work, at times overwhelming Gould's cool recorded sound with the in-hall sonority of the elegant Italian (Fazioli) concert grand borrowed for the occasion, but amazingly matching Gould's dizzying speeds in the Allegros. The result was many miles from Mozart but it was a gripper (for instance: Mozart's Rondeau finale transformed into a Norwegian country dance).

The two operatic excerpts offered much proof of Lortie's phenomenal and seasoned piano skills. He played both beautifully, the Wagner grand, the Strauss rapt. But it may be impossible to capture opera on a single piano without much listeners' foreknowledge of the original.

No such requirement reared its head in the program's final work: Ravel's La Valse. Lortie's moody, incandescent, blistering account of his own transcription of this decadent, end-of-the-world music was all that could be imagined, and more. An amazing display, reminiscent of those virtuoso astonishments occasionally visited upon us by Vladimir Horowitz. It brought the house down.

The single encore took us back to the purity and simplicity of the Adagio of the Bach/Marcello concerto that opened the program.

Talk about an opening of doors in the musical mind - this recital opened several. Gould's life may be long over, but his career and its quests are not.

Special to The Globe and Mail

[Ken]

Ken, do you have any feeling about the value of the new 80 CD Gould set? It's tempting to me but it would represent a 10% expansion of my CD collection - by one performer.

My personal feeling is that if I had unlimited funds and sincerely wished to patch up the holes in my Gould collection (OK, I'll admit it -- I only have Gould's "essentials", so the holes are substantial), I'd immediately hop on the offer. I've been looking on eBay for a Gould box set for a while, but this one might be a touch too expensive.

Though I did hear him playing a Brahms Intermezzo on CBC this morning and it made me want to explore more of his peripheral work.

[Ken]

By the way, I don't think one can get a true glimpse on Gould without hearing him play Schoenberg, who was the true driving force behind the artist, not Bach. There's a great video up on YouTube right now of Gould and Yehudi Menuhin discussing Schoenberg, and they get into quite the little disagreement!

[slofstra]

By the way, I don't think one can get a true glimpse on Gould without hearing him play Schoenberg, who was the true driving force behind the artist, not Bach. There's a great video up on YouTube right now of Gould and Yehudi Menuhin discussing Schoenberg, and they get into quite the little disagreement!

I will look for that clip. 'Chalkie' has convinced me not to buy the Gould set. Actually, the real reason is that I don't want to have that much Bach keyboard. I really don't listen to that much of the Bach keyboard stuff I have. I love the Brandenburgs, some of the Cantatas, the Orchestral Suites. The Passions I like but don't listen to a lot because of length. But the solo work - piano or violin - I can take or leave. I admire the virtuousity involved in playing many of these pieces, but I don't really warm to them.

I've noticed also that many of the Gould singles are at 7 or 8$ and I am going to do just that - pick up some Webern, Schoenberg, and maybe more Gibbons.

[slofstra]

Of course, now that I've said that, I've just purchased tickets to see Angela Hewitt play the 3 Gamba Sonatas (and I have never heard of these pieces before) at First Congregational Church, Berkeley, CA ... next week.

[Ken]

You won't be disappointed. I saw the duo at the Chamberfest this summer and they brought down the house. Hewitt and Muller-Schott really play well off of one another, and Schott's virtuosity is really something that must be beheld.

Do you have the new album? It's quite good but I feel it doesn't capture the vibrancy of the works when they are heard live.

[Chalkperson]

Of course, now that I've said that, I've just purchased tickets to see Angela Hewitt play the 3 Gamba Sonatas (and I have never heard of these pieces before) at First Congregational Church, Berkeley, CA ... next week.

The Gamba Sonatas are rightly very famous, she just put out a recording of those pieces..i'm sure you will enjoy it...as for Bach on the Piano might I suggest...

English Suites - Murray Perahia
The Well Tempered Clavier Books 1+2 - Angela Hewitt
Partitas - Craig Sheppard
Italian Concerto - Alexandre Tharaud
The Well Tempered Clavier Book One - Till Fellner
Bach + Liszt - Lise De La Salle
Goldberg Variations - Glenn Gould

[Werner]

I'd add the Goldberg Variations by Angela Hewitt to the list - every bit as fine as Glenn Gould's.

[Ken]

The Well Tempered Clavier Books 1+2 - Angela Hewitt

An interesting selection. I find she rushes the tempi in what I have heard of this recording a bit too much for my personal Bach taste (exclusive of when Gould performs, of course), though I'm always supportive of hometown heroes.

[Chalkperson]

I'd add the Goldberg Variations by Angela Hewitt to the list - every bit as fine as Glenn Gould's.

I would add Perahia and Schiff to that list also...

[Opus132]

From what eminent orb do these individuals drop onto our planet: Schubert, Shostakovich, Gould

Did you just name Gould next to Schubert and Shostakovich?

Isn't that going a bit far? We are talking about the man who thought Mozart was a bad composer for god sake.

[Opus132]

I'd add the Goldberg Variations by Angela Hewitt to the list - every bit as fine as Glenn Gould's.

I would add Perahia and Schiff to that list also...

Hewitt, Perahia and Schiff, the most bland Bach interpreters that ever lived. Nice...

[slofstra]

From what eminent orb do these individuals drop onto our planet: Schubert, Shostakovich, Gould

Did you just name Gould next to Schubert and Shostakovich?

Isn't that going a bit far? We are talking about the man who thought Mozart was a bad composer for god sake.

Let's not confuse sound ideas or mind with great talent. In fact, for some twisted reason the gods often bestow them in opposite proportions within the same corporeal entity. Further, musical progress and disdain for the well worn path often march in lockstep.

Absolutely, Gould was a musical prodigy of the first order. I do wonder if there was a composer struggling to get out, but I've not yet read his biography. But I wasn't ranking him. The association came about because that evening I listened to Schubert's final quartet, listened to a radio program about Gould, and read some more of Wilson's Shostakovich biography. That's all.

[Chalkperson]

I'd add the Goldberg Variations by Angela Hewitt to the list - every bit as fine as Glenn Gould's.

I would add Perahia and Schiff to that list also...

Hewitt, Perahia and Schiff, the most bland Bach interpreters that ever lived. Nice...

I reccomended those recordings for others, I personally enjoy Rosalyn Tureck's readings, I have four sets of hers and I have dozens of Harpshicord Discs of Bach, but, generally Harpsichords don't seem to get much support here, and these people are far from Bland, especially Hantai...

Pierre Hantai
Richard Eggar
Bob Van Asperen
Christophe Rousset
Blandine Rannou