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Some quite interesting banter lately! I'll try to catch up on
some of the recent subjects:
Bradley Lehman wrote about Contrapuctus I from KdF:
>For my money that 1959 performance on film is the best of the >three. Wasn't there any way to unmix the film soundtrack and put this onto >CD? (The exposition is mixed with some Lake Simcoe water noises, and we >see GG walking with his dog in the woods. Then at measure 18 the picture >cuts to GG at the Chickering for the rest of the piece.) I second that. Maybe this performance feels better because it is on
the Chickering. GG always said that the amount of his humming was
inversely proportional to his satisfaction with the instrument. Probably
no way to unmix the sound effects, however, unless the CBC still has the
original unmixed audio tapes from the cottage (very unlikely).
Speaking of the Chickering, has anyone ever mentioned on this list that
while the Chickering has long been considered his "boyhood" piano, recent
evidence proves almost conclusively that this is a myth? A letter was
found among his estate from a Toronto piano
establishment which discussed his rental terms and option to buy the
Chickering, dated around the late '50's!
Brad also wrote: >This brings us to a topic I've never seen discussed here:
finger
>substitution. The close-ups on his hands show evidence of (1) organ >training and (2) improvised fingerings (never writing them into his scores, >as he boasted later). He frequently plays a note with one finger (or >sometimes with 4 and 5 together!) and then switches to hold it with a >different finger. This is occasionally necessary if one wants an absolute >legato on the organ, but it also betrays a disinclination to plan >ahead. There's one place where GG plays 5(4)-5(4)-5(4)-5 in the soprano >where a simple 4-5-4-5 (4 crossing over 5) works perfectly well and can be >equally legato. Even more tellingly, there's a place (measure 26) where GG >plays an alto note with 4, switches to 5, and switches back to 4...even >though 4 and 3 have nothing else to do during any of that! It's as if he >automatically swaps out to 5 whenever he *might* need the rest of his hand >for something, but he doesn't need to know ahead of time. I've wondered why more players haven't commented on this, too.
Why hasn't someone written a doctoral thesis on "The Digital Selection and
Substitution of Glenn Gould in Relation to Compositional and Structural
Analysis"! Just seeing his fingers moving around with no thought of the
next measure can really tire me! For example, watch his fingers stating
the subject in the Contrapuctus I performance of the Monsaingeon film.
There should be an economy of movement, since it would be simple to play
1-5-3-1-2-1-2-3, but look at his fingers! No wonder technical talk
reminded GG of the caterpillar who..., his fingers ARE caterpillar-like in
the way they constantly move around! It looks like he uses twice the
energy necessary.
I have the impression that GG was replaying the score in his head as he
played; he would mentally sight-read the music, and his fingerings would
conform to his vision of the score during that particular
measure. This way, GG most likely learned music as a succession of
motivic movement instead of the muscle memory of fingering. It is
even possible that GG would convert three-part or four-part pieces into a
"mental" open score, not consciously of course, but I bet he could've
played any part at moment's notice- "Glenn, play the alto part from
the Allemande in the Second English Suite". To be certain, fingering
was low on his priorities. For all GG's talk of avoiding "pianistic" talk,
there is a wonderful interview where he delves into his technical aspect of
fingering in quite un-GG-like detail. It was by Jim Aikin of Keyboard
Magazine and is reprinted in "The Art of GG" ed. by John. P. L.
Roberts. He even admitted that his fingering was probably never the
same twice (Bradley's and my point exactly).
What is more (sorry to bore our readers with "pianistic" talk), he
sometimes makes mistakes in note values that have nothing to do with
interpretation. Watch as he performs the 4th Little Prelude in D
major. He strikes the a in bar 8 but does not hold it (as per
score). However, since he plays the piece 3 times in succession, we
can see that he DOES hold it in his 3rd version. Hey, only because I can
see his fingers do I notice this. If GG made mistakes like this all
the time, far be it for me to complain. Thank you Bruno M., thank
you...
Jim Morrison wrote about the humming during Contrap. I:
>Seems like the Monsaingeon ones will be the best for our study here
because
>Gould's voice is miked in order to pick up the discussion he's having with >Bruno. You can here his "hums" quite clearly and much more clearly than in >the music recordings where the engineers tried to remove them. GG and BM's voices were probably recorded by a boom (or overhead)
microphone, since technology had yet to produce small clip-on mics (such as
we see on newsbroadcasts)- the late '70s version was huge and hung around
the neck! GG's performance hums were picked up by the stereo piano mics
(situated on stands near the bentside of the piano), it is unlikely that the
boom mic was on during these performances. Why is his humming so
prominent? I don't see any baffles placed between GG and the mics. A
baffle is a light piece of cloth stretched on a stand, often made of the type of
nylon material used for panty hoses(!) to prevent sounds from reaching the
microphone. I can't remember if there are any in the Goldberg video,
but I seem to recall that there were.
Finally, if there are some out there who do not yet belong to the Friends
of GG Society but who have considered it, remember that membership fees are in
Canadian dollars. The basic entry fee of $65 is about $42 US dollars, and
with a current student ID the $25 fee converts into just around $16 US!!!
I mention this because some of the recent topics have been covered at length in
recent issues of GlennGould Magazine, i.e. Sean Malone's great essay on
humming, GG's Soviet tours (Juozas Rimas expressed a particular
interest in this), essays by former Guerrero students bringing light
on to his teaching methods, etc. If you are a fan of GG you really can't
go wrong!
Sorry for the length, I been busy building a clavichord and the list has
been fast and furious lately!
Dominic Lesnar
Asheville, NC |