overrated pianists of the 20th century

[m]

hahaha

Try again and find 3 differences.

sure. lets do a bit of the scriabin that has been mentioned further up this page. (1969 Sony BMG)

with a title like drammatico you expect it to be dramatic. in my opinion gould's opening is more pathetic than dramatic, because of many things. for example :

scriabin marks forte - gould plays a sort of mezzo piano and for me personally this sounds ridiculous

scriabin puts a metronome marking (crotchet = 69). goulds is nearly half this speed

gould seems to spread most of the chords even though i feel a dramatic sound would be to play them as scriabin wrote them. i think he overdoes the spreads and it starts to sound a bit wimpy, and when scriabin does write a spread, for me it totally loses its effect as that's how he's already played all the previous chords.

Scriabin marks the next section as mp - This isnt very far off the dynamic that Gould uses at the start, so, again .. it seems to lose its effect


so... is he playing scriabin or gould? it seems a bit insulting to scriabin to ignore virtually everything he's written...
  

 thats the end of the first page.

i'll do some bach - goldberg variations (Recorded 1954/55) (Urania 2005)


Gould seems to play the bass note a split second before the rest (my teacher calls this arcing - not sure if anyone else uses this word). For me this is a bit too chopin-esque, and gives it a little too much of a romantic feel. it might be acceptable every once in a while, but gould does it with nearly every note so it just starts to sound a bit ridiculous (ker-chunk, ker-chunk etc)

Also, he uses a little too much rubato for my taste. again, it makes it sound too romantic. some will say that the aria is supposed to sound romantic - i think thats perfectly ok, but there are ways to do that other than the cheap tricks that gould uses.

after the first few bars, gould has cut his opening speed by about 20%. this is not an exaggeration. for me this gives it a sort of confusing feel, as if he doesnt quite understand what the speed should be.

he is inconsistent with his dotted rhythms - for example in bar 8 he double dots the last quaver but in bar 9 he doesnt. I personally think that when it comes to playing dotted rhythms in bach and to an extent all early music, it's best to be consistent with dotted rhythms.

in my opinion he uses too much sustain pedal, again it just makes it sound too romantic. as i mentioned before there are better ways to be expressive in bach

towards the end of the aria in the semiquaver passages gould again drastically changes speed. this gets a bit annoying for me as hes already done this near the beginning. it doesnt seem to make sense, and it seems to me as if he's not in control of what he's doing.



hope that suffices as an explanation. sure seemed easier to me to just say : "i don't like his playing"

i would honestly personally rather listen to lang lang than glenn gould anytime. both crap, but at least lang lang is entertaining crap. gould is just crap.

Thank you for finally making your position clear.

By no means I am trying to change your opinion. The only thing I will say is in music there is text and also there is soul. While I pay utmost respect to text, I feel sorry (or maybe rather sad) when the text put above the soul.

It seems that you are young, so there might still be hope.

Best wishes, M

P.S. For the record, I don't like Gould's Scriabin 5th Sonata and quite a bit of other things, however I believe, the artists should be judged by their highest achievements.

[fastpara]

That is easy!!! Paderewski, he is so arrogant and all show.

[simonjp90]

Try again and find 3 differences.


Thank you for finally making your position clear.

By no means I am trying to change your opinion. The only thing I will say is in music there is text and also there is soul. While I pay utmost respect to text, I feel sorry (or maybe rather sad) when the text put above the soul.

It seems that you are young, so there might still be hope.

Best wishes, M

P.S. For the record, I don't like Gould's Scriabin 5th Sonata and quite a bit of other things, however I believe, the artists should be judged by their highest achievements.

great. thanks

[prongated]

so... is he playing scriabin or gould? it seems a bit insulting to scriabin to ignore virtually everything he's written...

You know...a few days ago Andras Schiff gave a recital in Toronto at our school's new hall, playing Mendelssohn op. 54 and 28 and Schumann op. 11 and 17. The op. 11, which I play(ed), was particularly eccentric. The tempi choices in the fast sections are usually too slow (e.g. the allegro in the 1st movt. felt more like allegretto, and the same for the scherzo 3rd movt.), and the dynamics, especially in the 4th movt., has SO much Schiff! (to the extent he played F where it is marked P, and vice versa!)

So, what do we make of it? That this is Schumann, as arranged by Schiff? And/or that Schiff is not a good pianist, or perhaps overrated, or perhaps "good but not that good"?

For me, such line of thinking (my analysis above included), while textually correct, is completely missing the point. This is Andras Schiff, an artist. He sees the text, and, having seen the text for so many years in his life, brought it out through the piano as music - as an artistic work. Set aside the music books and bask in his expressive and sentimental rendition of Schumann, and you will be richly rewarded. I completely did that for the op. 17, and was absolutely rewarded with nothing less than an amazing, breathtaking rendition of Fantasie - to the extent I jumped off my seat, applauding as soon as the sound died away (come to think of it, I've never done that in anyone's concert, ever).

Did he do what the music says? No. Would I play it the way he did? No. But yes, I appreciate that performance as a testament to Schiff, the world-class artist. By contrast, it is quite shocking to see scores of pianists coming out of conservatories with a standardised (institutionalised, or perhaps even uniformed, for lack of better words) piano playing.

[simonjp90]

You know...a few days ago Andras Schiff gave a recital in Toronto at our school's new hall, playing Mendelssohn op. 54 and 28 and Schumann op. 11 and 17. The op. 11, which I play(ed), was particularly eccentric. The tempi choices in the fast sections are usually too slow (e.g. the allegro in the 1st movt. felt more like allegretto, and the same for the scherzo 3rd movt.), and the dynamics, especially in the 4th movt., has SO much Schiff! (to the extent he played F where it is marked P, and vice versa!)

So, what do we make of it? That this is Schumann, as arranged by Schiff? And/or that Schiff is not a good pianist, or perhaps overrated, or perhaps "good but not that good"?

For me, such line of thinking (my analysis above included), while textually correct, is completely missing the point. This is Andras Schiff, an artist. He sees the text, and, having seen the text for so many years in his life, brought it out through the piano as music - as an artistic work. Set aside the music books and bask in his expressive and sentimental rendition of Schumann, and you will be richly rewarded. I completely did that for the op. 17, and was absolutely rewarded with nothing less than an amazing, breathtaking rendition of Fantasie - to the extent I jumped off my seat, applauding as soon as the sound died away (come to think of it, I've never done that in anyone's concert, ever).

Did he do what the music says? No. Would I play it the way he did? No. But yes, I appreciate that performance as a testament to Schiff, the world-class artist. By contrast, it is quite shocking to see scores of pianists coming out of conservatories with a standardised (institutionalised, or perhaps even uniformed, for lack of better words) piano playing.

I'm not against ignoring a few marks as long as they can be justified musically - Gould playing softly in a big opening marked "dramatico" in my opinion is not justified and spoils the music in my opinion. do you understand what im trying to say?

[prongated]

I'm not against ignoring a few marks as long as they can be justified musically - Gould playing softly in a big opening marked "dramatico" in my opinion is not justified and spoils the music in my opinion. do you understand what im trying to say?

Softly? Yeah, it's not marked piano, but I actually do find the overall conception dramatic - the opening shapes towards a climax onto the 2nd page before it calms down for the 2nd theme...how can that not be dramatic? Dramatic just means "like a drama" after all, right? It doesn't mean loud, so it doesn't have to mean loud. [Granted, it's marked forte!]

It's not at all the way most pianists play it. I don't play it like that. I don't agree with it. But I do (or at least, try to) appreciate what he's trying to convey. And I give him the credit due to an artist. You don't have to of course, and you certainly have the right to dislike it (and express your dislike!), but I just wonder to what extent such good young pianists as you (I assume so, anyway!) can actually appreciate such playing when they criticise it...

[simonjp90]

Softly? Yeah, it's not marked piano, but I actually do find the overall conception dramatic - the opening shapes towards a climax onto the 2nd page before it calms down for the 2nd theme...how can that not be dramatic? Dramatic just means "like a drama" after all, right? It doesn't mean loud, so it doesn't have to mean loud. [Granted, it's marked forte!]

It's not at all the way most pianists play it. I don't play it like that. I don't agree with it. But I do (or at least, try to) appreciate what he's trying to convey. And I give him the credit due to an artist. You don't have to of course, and you certainly have the right to dislike it (and express your dislike!), but I just wonder to what extent such good young pianists as you (I assume so, anyway!) can actually appreciate such playing when they criticise it...

I don't appreciate it because it just feels to me like he's just playing it to be different. i could play the goldberg variations FF all the way through but it wouldnt be very artistic

[pianist7]

I don't want to single anyone out. All musicians have their worthy interpretations.

[666666]

Anyone who helps keep classical piano music popular, keeps my job secure.  Let's not shoot ourselves in the foot, here.

[prongated]

Anyone who helps keep classical piano music popular, keeps my job secure.

As a sound engineer, or a piano teacher? I increasingly find that the future of the performing artists will inevitably depend (if not already so) on the quality of music teaching upon predominantly the younger generation.