Glenn Gould

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/249787 Aug 25, 2007 04:30 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6hQnBc5sQU

I saw "Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould" today
and it was super good!
But I wish they explained to a dumbo like me why his piano playing was different. Though that would have driven everyone who knows stuff about music nuts, I know.
The movie made me really like him as a person. I want to hear some of his radio documentaries.

I think his playing was different because his hearing was different... reading the biography there was this one detail that really stuck out for me... he could tell the difference between two different brands of high-end digital recording machines that had the same specs!

Thought the doc was sort of dull and a missed opportunity. Too much biographical information on what was sort of a dull-seeming life. I guess I too would've appreciated more info on his style; less about the married woman he was shacking up with.

most of the films focusing more on the music have already been made with the participation of glenn himself, and they are all great -- this one I loved precisely because it focused more on him as a person. all that stuff about cornelia foss only came out a few years ago and this is the first documentary to feature it. gould is one of the most painfully self-conscious people that's ever had a camera turned on him, watching him tell obscure jokes & pretending to engage in impromptu banter that he's obviously spent hours going over in his head is just agonizing -- so a full length film that goes into any detail about his actual love life is actually unprecedented for long time fans. it humanizes the genius, and it doesn't flinch when it comes time to portray the control freak.

the main thing missing from the documentary was some of the better excerpts of his playing, which is all you need to understand why it was different. I think it's basically assuming you've seen all the films he made with Bruno Monsaingeon. there's one scene that shows him at his cottage, the one where he breaks off in mid-phrase, walks to the window humming the part a few times until he's got it, then walks back to the piano and y'know that totally posed for-the-camera scene is so unbelievably brilliant I was kind of stunned when they didn't let it play through, it's not like you ever get sick of seeing that level of skill -- and when they cut away from it to talk to his piano teacher, I realized 'ok they're not even trying to show you the actual music in this film'.

http://www.amazon.com/Glenn-Gould-Off-Record/dp/B0001BKAVW/ref=pd_cp_d_2 -- early and late
http://www.amazon.com/Glenn-Gould-Alchemist/dp/B000089QEE -- this is the one for people more interested in his later control-freak studio techniques, has the insane scene where he 'conducts' the ambient-mic mixdown five feet away from the guy with his hands on the four faders

& they actually did spend -some- time in the new film about how his playing was different -- at around that time a lot of Bach was still being played in the Romantic style, hyper-ornamented & expressive tempo & dynamic shifts, and Gould just played that stuff blindingly Fast and Precise so you can really hear the interrelated lines. his left hand was just as strong as his right. it was one of the first times you could really hear the counterpoint like pure information, no smearing, all clarity -- but as sharp as his playing is, it's all passion driven, the music's the only thing he loves

it's why I prefer his Schoenberg playing to anyone else's, he's one of the few performers who actually cuts through the gloop & brings out the math in the lines but still sounds like he's just on fire with it

> the insane scene where he 'conducts' the ambient-mic mixdown five feet away from the guy with his hands on the four faders

Wow - is that on the YouTube?

part 1 has the engineers setting up four pairs of microphones at various parts of the hall, first pair inside the lidm, last pair at the very back of the hall only catching distant reverb.

this is for fans only, it's simultaneously amazing and almost too uncomfortable to watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chHJdmyIiRk

yep, that's a guy with a vision.

Incredible - I'm going to be listening to his recordings in a different way from now on.

Incredible is right.
You can really see why automated mixing boards had to eventually be invented!

yeah, he's conducting microphone levels there, it's kind of painfully imtimate to watch the control freak side running wild but it also confirms what the payoff of the control freak thing was

http://www.vivaverve.com/shopimages/products/ribbon/GlennGould5.jpg

my downstairs neighbour told me this week that he used to live downstairs from him in toronto in the 60s/70s and could hear him practice all the time

been binging on him on and off for the past six months or so

gould soundz

:)

for fans of that youtube of Gould conducting at the mixing board upthread, Sony put out an interesting two disc set last year -- first disc is all of his 'acoustic orchestrations' compiled on one disc, and the second disc is a CD-ROM containing all four mic rank recordings of a single Scriabin piece, allowing you to mix it yourself

http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-glenn-gould-the-acoustic1/

it's total fun. there's a youtube up of someone doing an odd mix

something addictive about his approach to bach for me -- makes it hard to listen to anyone else (on piano at least. I dig Landowska on harpsichord)

Are some of his recordings known to have weird pitch issues? I've been listening to his English Suites and I feel like there's this very slight speed-up/slow-down thing going on a lot of the time. The thing is I actually kind of like it, but I want to know if I'm crazy that I'm hearing it.

Also just noticed a weird piano warble on Two and Three Part Inventions which sounds like maybe it's coming from the piano itself?

Re the 2 and 3 part inventions, that was explained in the liners to the Sony Glenn Gould Edition version (from the series with the butt ugly white covers). That particular piano had taken a hit of some sort and after being repaired had a weird double-strike problem on certain of its hammers. Gould recorded that album with it anyway, professing to sort of like the effect (I can't say I agree)

Idk about pitch stability on the English suites, I'll try to have a listen. Seems weird for tapes of that vintage to have that problem!

http://www.metafilter.com/145757/Radio-as-Music

whoa cool!

this is terrific, fvck you mozart u dweeb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JauII1jCG6Q&feature=emb_logo

"for ten bars he did absolutely nothing except cover up in the most delinquent way with scales and arpeggios precisely those rather inane chords"

drag his ASS gg

glenn gould and cecil taylor were so nearly the same age: in a better world they'd have been on TV robustly debating gg's over-simplified line here on improvisation as largely a happy-go-lucky art of the moment

but still this is v good on the battle between the explosive mischief of invention & the productive self-denial of structure

(or maybe sonny rollins if you can't imagine cecil's mischief-making letting up long enough to allow a gouldian dialectics through)

I came here to post that same video!!