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Thanks for the info. I made an acquaintance of a concert pianist maybe 8 years ago, and started reading about Gould, different pianos. My friend has a mental

by gtani 14y ago

Thanks for the info. I made an acquaintance of a concert pianist maybe 8 years ago, and started reading about Gould, different pianos. My friend has a mental catalog of all the pianos she's performed on, the hall acoustics, and the tuners (she told me there's a tuner around Santa Cruz, CA who's a magician). Gould also purchased a Yamaha, i remember, I was surprised since it has a very different action, starting with 10mm key dip (vs. 3/8" on most European concert grands). regarding singing: Keith Jarrett's older solo recordings feature humalongs, along with moans and groans too. It would be a pity to avoid those 2 artists because of that

stan_rogers 14y ago
Except that Jarrett did not, himself, want to get rid of the vocalizations. Gould did, but found that they had become such an intrinsic part of his learning of the piece that he was unable to play to his satisfaction without vocalizing. (Note that he's doing a sort of meta-riff much of the time rather than simply singing along with his playing. It bothered him that the non-Bachness of his singing has to be recorded along with what Bach wrote.) It's not that I avoid Gould (or suggest anyone else does)—in fact I've got his entire Bach catalog and love it (Beethoven and Sibelius, not so much)—but one of the immense pleasures of listening to Bach in any form, and particularly in Gould's performances, is that one can listen to the whole of a piece and follow the voices individually at the same time. (Or, I guess, you can sort of Necker between the two if you can't quite hit the enlightenment listning.) That was where Gould blew the "reference" Landowska out of the water in '55 (she played a much more "chorded" performance). Listened to at low volumes, I can still do that with Gould's later recordings, but if the piece is played loudly enough to make the piano's voicing and dynamics distinctive, then the voice-over clouds the texture. I'd just love to hear it as Gould imagined it rather than as it was captured, not as a replacement necessarily, but as a companion.

by gtani 14y ago

stan_rogers 14y ago

Except that Jarrett did not, himself, want to get rid of the vocalizations. Gould did, but found that they had become such an intrinsic part of his learning of the piece that he was unable to play to his satisfaction without vocalizing. (Note that he's doing a sort of meta-riff much of the time rather than simply singing along with his playing. It bothered him that the non-Bachness of his singing has to be recorded along with what Bach wrote.) It's not that I avoid Gould (or suggest anyone else does)—in fact I've got his entire Bach catalog and love it (Beethoven and Sibelius, not so much)—but one of the immense pleasures of listening to Bach in any form, and particularly in Gould's performances, is that one can listen to the whole of a piece and follow the voices individually at the same time. (Or, I guess, you can sort of Necker between the two if you can't quite hit the enlightenment listning.) That was where Gould blew the "reference" Landowska out of the water in '55 (she played a much more "chorded" performance). Listened to at low volumes, I can still do that with Gould's later recordings, but if the piece is played loudly enough to make the piano's voicing and dynamics distinctive, then the voice-over clouds the texture. I'd just love to hear it as Gould imagined it rather than as it was captured, not as a replacement necessarily, but as a companion.