Re: [F_minor] Something Old and Something Blue/Grey

[Kpapademas <kpapademas@aol.com>]

I think that Ms Hewitt and others who regard Glenn Gould's technique as "crazy" or "eccentric" 
should read (or re-read) the article by Sean Malone on Glenn Gould and the Art of Fugue in The 
Glenn Gould Magazine Spring 2002 issue, Volume 8 Number 1.  I will quote from the article:
"Glenn Gould was a man of rare intelligence, whose tremendous capacity for thought found a
home in the idealistic world of fugue, from where he sought to understand and impart the structure 
of music and the very nature of understanding itself, his every corporeal conduit relentlessly 
seeking to communicate the unfathomable dimension of Bach's universe through an instrument 
that, at times, seemingly could not keep pace -- the piano." No, his technique was not "crazy", it was sublime.
K




In a message dated 04/01/09 08:05:25 Central Daylight Time, fred.houpt@rbc.com writes:
On another topic I meant to write about, in last months BBC Music Mag is 
a cover article/interview with Angela Hewitt.  Something she said about 
GG just made me cringe.  She said that she could never understand 
Gould's technique because it was just too crazy.  Crazy?  A day or so 
before reading this I listened in rapt joy as I enjoyed once again GG's 
recording of Elizabethan composers.  Crazy technique?  The reason no one 
else tries this music is because they don't know what to do with it. 
They have to achieve a sense of unity with the times, modes and thinking 
of that era.  Gould was able to do so because his mind on some levels 
was so free to explore and because his technique was elastic enough to 
adapt to different musical periods.   

I am not slagging Hewitt as a performer; she is excellent.  But GG was 
not possessed of a crazy technique, just one that was perfectly suited 
to his vivid imagination and awesome intellect.  Even Hewitt has missed 
this and frankly I am totally sick and tired of hearing how people put 
GG's technique to the torch when they should be paying closer attention 
to the light he shines to the inner realms of meaning that most don't 
even know are there. No one will argue that he often took eccentric 
approaches to speed but there is not a pianist alive today who could 
make a musical line sing with such balanced clarity as GG could and in 
any genre he played.  That alone for me makes all of his technique worth 
putting up with.   

Kind regards, 

Fred Houpt 
Toronto 
[snip] 
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