Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner The "Secret" to Glen Gould's Awesome Technique?

Oh no, it's YOU who are not a professional musician.

A true professional would have videos and recordings and examples of their playing on their website.

You are probably living off an inheritance, or something like that.

And again, teaching piano is often the 2nd tier, backup career of the failed concert musician, which would be you. Only a disgruntled failed musician such as yourself would disparage Gould and Lang. I do not worship them...I can criticize performances of both them. But it's ok to recognize great musical ability when you are not insecure about your own.

I'd certainly play you under the table....

Seriously guys?

I find it utterly bizarre that Gould brings about such strong feelings. Just like any other performer, I enjoy some facets of his playing and not others, and yet I find that this fight over Gould is far more common than it should it be. Why is it that no other performer seems to inspire such passionate difference of opinion?

I think this simply owes to his idiosyncrasies. Performers who go against the grain or have unusual approaches are polarizing because those who follow them have a special affinity or connection to their minds and souls.

Gould was a very unusual sort of fellow and usual sorts tend to congregate and connect with him in that way. The connection does run on more channels than simply that of his musicianship, and that is quite to be expected because musicians are channels who bring you into their emotional world. In a way, attacking his musicianship can be seen as an attack on his soul, or the soul of someone who closely identifies with his unusual character.

Unusual types become defensive because they are often targets, and feel misunderstood. I don't have an emotional affinity for Mr. Gould's playing, but I do have one for his personality - it takes a strong soul and a strong will and a very capable mind to do what he did and I feel like I 'get' Gould that way. It mirrors my own individualistic approach to music.

Some musicians are that way. They are unconcerned with the opinions of other musicians and rely on other kinds of criteria for greatness besides simply just the technique and the sound. Sometimes music is a philosophical and spiritual enterprise. Gould is perhaps the most idiosyncratic pianist of them all. I think he did not care in the slightest about anyone who could be listening to his inner world. He laid his soul bare, in order to take him or leave him. Many fondly take him for that reason alone because it speaks so clearly to their own musical soul. That kind of bareness is a greatness unto itself.

Gould came to challenge us all and I rather appreciate him for it. If the only thing you valued is 'beauty in tone', you could select a few pianists and never listen to anything else. Gould is a deconstructionist who engages the intellect and probes the philosophical and the spiritual, all while bringing back into vogue that great neglected master Johann Sebastian Bach. I wonder what Bach will think when Gould sits down to play for him in heaven...

And yes, I agree his playing was often very dry, percussive, and harsh. He intentionally teased and tormented the ears of his listeners, with mixed results. It is very easy to find flaws and defects compared with what is popularly pleasant to hear. I do feel that he easily had the mind and the hands to go for the 'beautiful tone' and sound like yet another iteration in his generation of popular pianists, but his soul wanted otherwise.

Last time I looked the Albert Hall was still there.

'...almost never played a wrong note'!? That puts him yards ahead of Cortot!

They are not going to tear down the Albert Hall! Albert wouldn't like that.

Apparently I have defective ears, because as I write this I am listening to Gould's performances of Brahms' Op. 117 Intermezzi, and I am hearing beautiful tone and ample color.

And, to take just one other example, how anyone can listen to Gould's two performances of the Goldberg and not hear beauty of tone is beyond me.

If we're going to call any performers geniuses (and it seems we do that a lot), then Gould merits the title.

Postscript: I am a musician.

The only thing that is stupid is when someone passes an opinion about a pianist, great or otherwise, who has been dead for more than 30 years, and someone else takes it as a personal insult.

It's also true that he limited his repertoire. He didn't enjoy playing Mozart, for instance, but he played it.

In fact, I highly recommend reading Said's essays about Gould. Illuminating.

Keep in mind that Ashkenazy is part of a massive business called classical music, whose ultimate goal is not the "recreation of our souls," as Bach put it, but rather the making of big money. When he claims that Gould or any other pianist fouled up a recording or performance, he's also implicitly saying, "attend my concerts, not his; buy my records, not his." For more on that, again, read Said's books of music criticism.

However, Mr. Baker's post was not HIS "opinion"; it was just an old stereotypical opinion that he shares. All of his arguments are identical to those leveled at the pianist even while he still played concerts—so over 50 years ago.

They are nothing new, and nothing that hasn't been sufficiently rebutted by myriad musicians, music lovers, and critics, including intellectuals such as Edward Said.

Keep in mind that Ashkenazy is part of a massive business called classical music, whose ultimate goal is not the "recreation of our souls," as Bach put it, but rather the making of big money. When he claims that Gould or any other pianist fouled up a recording or performance, he's also implicitly saying, "attend my concerts, not his; buy my records, not his." For more on that, again, read Said's books of music criticism.