Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Aria from Bach's Goldberg Variations
Glenn Gould was possibly the most brilliant interpreter of J.S. Bach, at least in my opinion. He was passionately interested in new media of every kind and would have loved the idea of virtual worlds to play in. The little chair he uses in this video was the only chair he could feel comfortable in performing with so it was carried to his concert appearances as well as to his recording sessions all over the world. If you listen closely you can hear him crooning to the music. Eccentric, idiosyncratic, yes; strange, well yes, it's true; artist definitely.
Glenn Gould (link)
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One of my favorite pieces of music, ever.
ReplyDeleteI have heard of Glenn Gould; never really looked into his performances before, but I will now.
Great story -- thanks for sharing.
There's some controversy about his treatment of composer's scores- the purists think he takes unacceptable liberties and therefore not worthy, and the groupies think he's genius for listening to his inner Bach (or Mozart or Brahms) instead of slavishly adhering to manuscript notations- some of which were printers' marks and vary from copy to copy (esp. the hand-copied scores).
ReplyDeleteIf you like Goldberg Variations, here's a great ramble by a classical pianist who has performed in Second Life: http://jeremydenk.net/blog/2009/05/11/yet-more-verbiage-about-the-goldberg-variations/