Re: GG-Shostakovich Quintet

[john burke <john.burke@mindspring.com>]

on 2/13/2000 10:55 AM, Michael Arnowitt at arnowitt@sover.net wrote:

> At 04:51 PM 02/12/2000 -0800, you wrote:
>> ...
>> As to modernism, his approach to the Quintet is more like Schumann than
>> anything else. Is this a High Romantic side of Gould emerging, or a
>> backhanded commentary on Shostakovich's premodern Russian style? I know my
>> jaw dropped when I read (in Friedrich?) that GG had performed the Glinka
>> "Trio Pathetique" at some Festival or other in Canada. That's a piece I have
>> a kind of guilty fondness for, but it's not, um, very good music; I
>> described the slow movement to a friend as "a Chopin Nocturne, but without
>> talent."
>> 
> 
> Gould in one of the interviews in the GG Reader said he liked Glinka, well,
> early Glinka anyway.  I think it was in a conversation with Monsaingeon
> about Mozart where they started to wander...
> 
> The original poster wondered if Gould had written anything about
> Shostakovich.  Again, I think in the GG Reader there is at least one article
> GG wrote surveying a number of Russian composers.  I'm sure there must be
> some coverage of Shostakovich there.  I have a memory of Gould basically
> saying the only truly first-rate Russian composer was Prokofiev.
> 
> As you can perhaps guess, I don't own a copy of the GG Reader -- I've always
> gone to my local library (just a few blocks away) and borrowed theirs.
> Recently I did try to order one from a local book store and was told it's
> out of print.  I hope, if that is true, that the GG Foundation would make it
> a priority to ensure that a new print run is done.
> 
> Michael
> 
> 
> 
I just searched Bookfinder and learned that

(a) Powell's Books has one copy in stock at $17.

(b) More than 30 used copies, paper and cloth, are available at prices
ranging upward from about $13.



-- 
best, jvb