1982, the year music died.

[contrapunctus]

Of ALL twentieth century pianists Glenn Gould is the King. He had the greatest

technique, but, not only that, he had the greatest CONTROL over his technique (as

shown be his decisions to play certain pieces slower than average). Another reason why

he chose to play certain pieces is because is touch and tone were above comparison. He

could play any number of voices at once with unbelievable clarity. He could play a better

legato without using the pedal than any other pianist since Lhevinne

(as you know he never used the pedal while playing any Bach piece). Glenn's musical

genius, being superlative to other twentieth century virtuosos, is way above

questionableness. His innovations on music theory and performance were pure genius. He is the only pianist who understood what music really was:

"The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity." --Glenn Gould



And you know what the funny thing is, you cannot prove me wrong.

[orlandopiano]

And you know what the funny thing is, you cannot prove me wrong.

And you cannot prove you're right either.

There have been countless better and more versatile pianists over the 20th century.

[presto agitato]

Im not familiar with his recording but his Bach is ... boring and so mechanical IMO

[stevie]

a musical comedienne of the highest order

fart

[mikey6]

You like posting contraversial topics don't you? lol
I think he's one of the strangest musicians of the 20th century, he's the only one that could do what he did and get away with it.  I'm sure everyone's been warned not to imitate him when playing Bach.  But I personally don't think he's the greatest, sureley one has to be a good all round musician - if not perhaps the greatest at every composer, then make his mark on each one.  I don't think the pieces Gould played besides Bach are particularly good even if they do have his very (very) personal touch!

[sevencircles]

Everything is subjective except for technique to some extent.

He is hardly the greatest technical pianist but I do find his technique superior to the most praised pianist of the 20:th century (and that is?)

It seemed like he wanted to prove that both Beethoven and Mozart are very overrrated composers with the way he played their works. I tend to agree with Gould that Mozart is overrated actually.

[pita bread]

And you know what the funny thing is, you cannot prove me wrong.

Sick of being proven wrong are we now?

[arensky]

I never ceases to amaze me how certain pianists, always the ones who have a very strong and loyal group of followers, and a presence on records or live that goes beyond mere interpretation or piano playing, develop a equally vocal group of detractors.

When a musician polarizes the general audience into violently opposed camps I can only assume that they are at the top, whether I like it or not. The worst is to have an indifferent lukewarm reaction from the public, or of course to be rejected almost universally (Rusnack, we seem to have dispensed with him). There have been a very few who have encountered almost no negative critcism and mostly praise from their peers and  the public and critics. Some of these pianists are Artur Rubinstein, Perhaia, Pollini and Brendel (can't stand either of those), Ashkenazy (sure some of us don't like him but it never get's heated, at least on this forum), Zimmereman, Schiff, de Larrocha, Gilels, Casadesus, (as with Ashkenazy some don't care for him but it never turns into a brawl).

And the polarizers, the ones who get our blood boiling, and is that so bad?

Gould, Horowitz, Cziffra (I rarely heard a good word about him as a student, when I heard some of his Liszt recs I was blown away! This was when I began to question the establishment), Argerich, Richter, Michelangeli, Pogorelich and of course, here he comes....Lang Lang !

This is nothing new, let's step back into the past , here are some dividers (not uniters!) of the past....
 
Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, Clara Schumann, Anton Rubinstein, Hofmann, Paderewski, Rachmaninov, Barere.

"There is only one thing worse than being talked about; not being talked about!" ....O. Wilde

 

[BoliverAllmon]

I am pretty sure he used pedal at some points in Bach.

[arensky]

I am pretty sure he used pedal at some points in Bach.

He did, but very sparingly and it's almost impossible to tell.

[pseudopianist]

Music died when Bach died... but making breif guest apparence during the years of Scriabin, Messiaen, Liszt and Sorabji... then it died again.

[pantonality]

In general I found much of Gould's Bach quite interesting, if a bit eccentric.

BUT, if he had such great control why could't he stop himself from singing along?

[BoliverAllmon]

He did, but very sparingly and it's almost impossible to tell.

so I guess we did prove him wrong?

[jason2711]

well i'd like to think music is alive well today - why else are we here?

[leahcim]

And you know what the funny thing is, you cannot prove me wrong.

Proof by contradiction.

Suppose Glen Gould is the king (1) and that he's the only pianist who knows what music really is(2). Define a function MustHaveBeenABuffoon(f) to be true if f is a pianist and f plays unmusical works written by pianists who don't know what music really is.

Clearly if (2) is true, MustHaveBeenABuffoon(Gould) is also true, contradicting our initial assertion (1)

QED.

[bearzinthehood]

Clearly if (2) is true, MustHaveBeenABuffoon(Gould) is also true

I'm sure you're well aware that your math professor would give you an F for that cop out.  Unless you were planning on presenting a proof by circular logic.

[ryguillian]

Contrapunctus:

Glenn Gould's 1981 recording of J. S. Bach's "Goldberg Variations" (one of my favorite recordings) is on the second disc of a three disc set titled "A State of Wonder" (derived from the famous quote). On the set's first disc is Gould's 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations and on the third is a 1982 interview between Gould and Tim Page. In the interview Gould says:

"All of the music that really interests me—not just some of it, all of it—is contrapuntal music...music with an explosion of simultaneous ideas."

Similarly, your post achieved a simultaneous explosion of conjecture and sloppiness. Careful writing suggests seriousness: your slovenly spelling and wording suggest you're not concerned about the meaning of your writing. Gould carefully constructed his art; try constructing clear sentences rather than momentarily ejecting adrenaline and prematurely clicking "post".

He had the greatest technique, but, not only that, he had the greatest CONTROL over his technique (as shown be his decisions to play certain pieces slower than average).

Gould described his 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations as "too fast for comfort".

[H]e never used the pedal while playing any Bach piece.

He never used the sustaining pedal with Bach's music but he did use the soft pedal: "By playing on two string rather than three you get a much more specific, much leaner, quality of sound."

His innovations on music theory ... were pure genius.

What innovations in music theory?

He is the only pianist who understood what music really was:

"The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity." -- Glenn Gould

He states his opinion on music's purpose in that quote, not its definition.

—Ryan

[contrapunctus]

It saddens me how you people do not have the intellect to understand the truths behind music which were brought out by Gould.

[maxy]

It saddens me how you people do not have the intellect to understand the truths behind music which were brought out by Gould.

heh, such barbarians we are...  let's all bow down to Contrapunctus superior intellect.   

Gould was a genius.  But sometimes, I have to agree with what Richter said about him, it was a statement close to: "he does not know what he is talking about". 

[ryguillian]

It saddens me how you people do not have the intellect to understand the truths behind music which were brought out by Gould.

What truths, why were these truths "behind" the music, and how did Gould bring these out?

—Ryan

[pita bread]

It saddens me how you people do not have the intellect to understand the truths behind music which were brought out by Gould.

It saddens me how you, someone with the alias "Contrapunctus," do not have the intellect to understand contrapuntal masterpieces by Sorabji.

[ryguillian]

It saddens me how you, someone with the alias "Contrapunctus," do not have the intellect to understand contrapunctal masterpieces by Sorabji.

I think you mean contrapuntal.

I don't know enough about the quality of Sorabji's counterpoint to declare his works contrapuntal masterpieces. We should start another topic discussing this.

—Ryan

[chromatickler]

here he comes....Lang Lang !

LEGENDARY 

[m]

1982, the year music died.

No. There will be time when people would forget who G. Gould was. Hell, there probably would be time when people will forget who Bach was.
Trust me, the music then will still be alive.

[rob47]

the greatest CONTROL over his technique

what is technique?

[leahcim]

It saddens me how you people do not have the intellect to understand the truths behind music which were brought out by Gould.

A common argument. It doesn't explain why you can be thick as a brick and like Bach, Mozart and Beethoven amongst others and similarly enjoy the playing of a long list of pianists but you need great intellect to appreciate <insert piece / player under discussion>

If it helps, there's a guy here who you should get on with :-
https://www.pedaplus.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl

[Perhaps you could divert him from posting his mantra on piano conversion etc every time some useful topic on technique / arm weight etc appears?]

[contrapunctus]

The fact that you care enough about my opinions on Gould to post twenty five posts on the subject shows that you have great respect for me. Thank you. I appreciate it very much.




0o0o0o0 who just went down in flames?

[BoliverAllmon]

cars in France?

[rc]

The fact that you care enough about my opinions on Gould to post twenty five posts on the subject shows that you have great respect for me. Thank you. I appreciate it very much.




0o0o0o0 who just went down in flames?

So... This is a troll thread.

[apion]

Glenn Gould's musical genius, being superlative to other twentieth century virtuosos, is way above questionableness. * * * * He is the only pianist who understood what music really was.

This is easily the biggest load of bullsh#t yet unloaded at this forum.  What a load of pure crap.  Why don't you take your lifesize poster of Glenn Gould and your jar of vaseline to the nearest dumpster.

[ryguillian]

Why don't you take your lifesize poster of Glenn Gould and your jar of vaseline to the nearest dumpster.

Word.

—Ryan

[BoliverAllmon]

The fact that you care enough about my opinions on Gould to post twenty five posts on the subject shows that you have great respect for me. Thank you. I appreciate it very much.




0o0o0o0 who just went down in flames?

cars in France?

[Motrax]

 

[gouldfischer]

Hell, there probably would be time when people will forget who Bach was.

I doubt it.

[ramseytheii]

No. There will be time when people would forget who G. Gould was. Hell, there probably would be time when people will forget who Bach was.
Trust me, the music then will still be alive.

In the other thread that is hung up on Glenn Gould the Otto Friedrich book was mentioned.  I wanted to quote a passage from there that stuck with me:

"In fall of 1977, while Gould was still alive, the United States government sent off into the unknown two spacecraft destined for Jupiter, Saturn and beyond.  In the hope that somebody somewhere might eventually intercept these spacecraft, they were loaded with a variety of message that were supposed to report the existence of thinking beings on a planet known as earth.  Official committees met to decide on what should be said... What resulted was a twelve-inch copper recording, together with a record-playing machine, and pictorial instructions on how the machine could be made to play.

The record included a declaration of good cheer from President Jimmy Carter... then came a series of greetings in a series of languages, starting with Sumerian, the oldest one known, and ending with a child saying in English, 'Hello from the children of planet earth.'  Then came something called 'sounds of earth...' And then, finally, the intergalactic language of music: pygmy girls... Louis Armstrong... a Japanese flute... the Queen of the Night Aria... a woman's wedding song from Peru... and Glenn Gould playing the prelude and fugue in C major from the first book of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.
....

If some space patrol in Taurus ever gathers in one of these Voyager vehicles some 500,000 years from now, and if the authorities there ever crack open their catch, and if they manage to decipher the pictorial instructions and figure out how to play the copper record that contains the first prelude and fugue from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, God knows what they will make of Glenn Gould, who is and is not there, or of us."

Walter Ramsey

[contrapunctus]

In the other thread that is hung up on Glenn Gould the Otto Friedrich book was mentioned.  I wanted to quote a passage from there that stuck with me:

"In fall of 1977, while Gould was still alive, the United States government sent off into the unknown two spacecraft destined for Jupiter, Saturn and beyond.  In the hope that somebody somewhere might eventually intercept these spacecraft, they were loaded with a variety of message that were supposed to report the existence of thinking beings on a planet known as earth.  Official committees met to decide on what should be said... What resulted was a twelve-inch copper recording, together with a record-playing machine, and pictorial instructions on how the machine could be made to play.

The record included a declaration of good cheer from President Jimmy Carter... then came a series of greetings in a series of languages, starting with Sumerian, the oldest one known, and ending with a child saying in English, 'Hello from the children of planet earth.'  Then came something called 'sounds of earth...' And then, finally, the intergalactic language of music: pygmy girls... Louis Armstrong... a Japanese flute... the Queen of the Night Aria... a woman's wedding song from Peru... and Glenn Gould playing the prelude and fugue in C major from the first book of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.
....

If some space patrol in Taurus ever gathers in one of these Voyager vehicles some 500,000 years from now, and if the authorities there ever crack open their catch, and if they manage to decipher the pictorial instructions and figure out how to play the copper record that contains the first prelude and fugue from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, God knows what they will make of Glenn Gould, who is and is not there, or of us."

Walter Ramsey

Very true except it was a gold record not a copper one.
Carl Sagan was one of the people who decided what went on the record. He is almost as amazing as gould himself.

[brewtality]

For some strange reason I thought this thread was going to be about Randy Rhoads.