Piano Ctos 1 4 & 5 - 70th Anniversary Edition
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Music Reviews of Piano Ctos 1 4 & 5 - 70th Anniversary Edition
Music Review: THE ONE AND ONLY
Rating: 5 Stars
This disc does not amount to much in terms of playing-time, and the recorded balance is a little unfair to the orchestra, but I can still give it 5 stars at a bargain price. Sviatoslav Richter apparently said that in these performances the youthful Gould was not yet fully inside his own distinctive style. Maybe so, but the fact remains that Gould did more than everyone else combined to restore Bach-playing on the piano to respectability after the over-long ascendancy of the purist school who refused to admit that as even legitimate. Instruments exist for music, not music for instruments, so far as I'm concerned. Moreover Gould was, purely as a player, an out-and-out phenomenon, one that surpassed even Richter in my own opinion. He was a perfectionist to rival Michelangeli, though of course nothing like him in sound, and on this disc you will hear his trademark pearly evenness in the runs and passage-work and that amazing cut-diamond brilliance in the ornamentation. I think I know what Richter meant, but I would ascribe part of the cause at least to the recording, which highlights the solo unduly at the expense of the orchestra.
These three concertos were recorded over the same two days in 1957, with the orchestra under two different conductors for reasons not stated. I wonder whether Gould subsequently got to know the performance, from 1964, of the 5th Brandenburg with Serkin at the piano and his Marlboro festival orchestra conducted by no less than Casals. This has now been reissued on the Sony label, and anyone looking for a model of how to do a Bach concerto with a big piano solo need look no further. Richter himself regretted not being able to take up Serkin's invitation to join the festival, and we will now never now know what might have come out of such a collaboration. At least two of the concertos are Bach's own arrangements of works for other instruments, not that one would ever realise.
The liner note makes rather a meal of Gould's misgivings about the concerto form in general, and Gould has only himself to blame for this by talking too much, as he was always prone to doing. Despite that, it is still illuminating in a rather Teutonic way, and of course I am always glad to get any more of Gould's wonderful Bach-playing that I can find.
Music Review: This is the perfect Glenn Gould sampler.
Rating: 5 Stars
From the drama of the D Minor concerto to the songfulness of the A Major and the Machiavellian intrigue of the F Minor, Gould's technical clarity and articulation are consistently phenomenal, the music flows smoothly under his fingertips; his eloquence and lack of idiosyncrasy make his these performances among his most approachable and listener-friendly. Yes, there is Gould's trademark vocalize, most notably in the slow movement of the A Major, but it's a small price to pay for such wonderful performances, not only from Gould but also from the Columbia Symphony Orchestra - in this case, a pick-up ensemble consistently mainly of players from the New York Philharmonic. They, along with Gould and conductors Leonard Bernstein and Vladimir Golschmann, take a chamber music approach, and the resulting interplay between soloist and various members of the orchestra - made all the clearer with Sony's excellent remastering - adds to the joy of the overall proceedings.
Sony has wisely upped the ante by adding two of Gould's finest solo Bach recordings. The 1959 performance of the Italian Concerto is the fleeter-fingered of his two traversals, and it is good to hear the "Concerto after Marcello" paired with it instead of Gould's lumpy remake. The Italian Concerto radiates the same ecstasy in playing that infused the three concertos preceding it - two fireballs of extreme dynamism framing a hushed central movement that keeps you at the edge of your chair with its rapt intensity. The "Concerto after Marcello" adds wit and, again, intrigue to this heady mix and shows there were still moments, even in the year before his untimely death, that Gould did not take himself as ponderously serious as was his wont. This, not the final version of the Goldberg Variations, is Gould's most fitting memorial.
Music Review: Gould en équilibre...
Rating: 3 Stars
L'équilibre même de toute l'affaire interprétative des Concerti de Bach réside dans ce dangereux rapport entre deux pans sonores, savoir : d'une part,la masse orchestrale d'une densité contrapunctique rare,comme toujours, d'autre part la voix isolée du soliste... Des glissements innombrables ont donné des résultats catastrophiques quant à la gestion de ce rapport-là, rapport pourtant essentiel entre pluralité et unité... Or, notre vieil "anachorète des studios" - Glenn, 25 ans à l'époque - et Vladimir Golschmann au fait de sa maturité -64 ans -, tous deux nous donnent une leçon de maîtrise inégalée à ce jour...et voilà le principal inconvénient tout enregistrement !!...en effet, tous mes voeux à qui voudra s'attaquer à ces Concerti-là désormais ! Gould n'est pas encore DANS son style, il ne l'a pas trouvé (selon le mot de Richter) mais il soutient bien son rôle dans le rapport évoqué plus haut, il apporte le relief...Golschmann, lui, apporte la sérénité d'une vision comme panoramique... L'andante du dernier Concerto - le Sol mineur- étant sans doute, à cet égard, le sommet de ce que l'on pourrait nommer "l'art de l'équilibre ", lequel, semblable à ces grands mobiles de Kalder, frémit au moindre souffle, se balance, semble vouloir se décrocher, se déformer mais revient finalement, toujours identique à lui-même...pour l'éternité d'un temps.
Jan Leontsky, compositeur