Bach Keyboard Works
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Johann Sebastian Bach
Label: Glenn Gould Edition
Magazine Review Date: 11/1994
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 61
Mastering:
Mono
ADD
Catalogue Number: SMK52685
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Goldberg Variations |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: C minor |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: D |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: D minor |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: E flat |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: E |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: E minor |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: F |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: F minor |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: G |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: G minor |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: A |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: A minor |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: B flat |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (15) 3-Part Inventions ,'Sinfonias', Movement: B minor |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
Composer or Director: Johann Sebastian Bach
Label: Glenn Gould Edition
Magazine Review Date: 11/1994
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 148
Mastering:
ADD
Catalogue Number: SM2K52597
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| (6) Partitas |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (6 Little) Preludes |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| Prelude and Fughetta |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| Prelude and Fugue |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (9) Preludes (Pieces from Clavier-Büchlein for W, Movement: Praeambulum in C, BWV924 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (9) Preludes (Pieces from Clavier-Büchlein for W, Movement: 'Prelude in D, BWV925 ('?'by W. F. Bach)' |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (9) Preludes (Pieces from Clavier-Büchlein for W, Movement: Prelude in D minor, BWV926 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (9) Preludes (Pieces from Clavier-Büchlein for W, Movement: Praeambulum in F, BWV927 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (9) Preludes (Pieces from Clavier-Büchlein for W, Movement: Prelude in F, BWV928 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| (9) Preludes (Pieces from Clavier-Büchlein for W, Movement: Praeambulum in G minor, BWV930 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| Fugue |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
| Fughetta |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Glenn Gould, Piano Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
Author: Bryce Morrison
Sony's magisterial Glenn Gould Edition, superbly remastered, lavishly and elegantly presented, continues apace with seven more CDs exclusively devoted to Bach, Gould's greatest love. Once again they disclose a Chinese box of paradoxes, sometimes forcibly reminding us of the pitfalls as well as the rewards of musical genius. I, for one, would rather turn to the Partitas, the Goldberg Variations (the 1959 Salzburg Festival performance and the first authorized release of what is now Gould's third recording) and the 15 Three-Part Inventions (the first release of a Moscow performance dating from 1957) than to the 48 Preludes and Fugues for the finest jewels in Gould's crown, for the truest balance of energy and reflection, of fidelity and personal idiosyncrasy.
From Gould the so-called Old Testament of the Keyboard is shaken up to become an Iconoclastic rather than New Testament. All romantic potential is rudely swept into oblivion and many of these performances affect one like third degree treatment, where blinding clarity is coupled with an autocracy that dares you to dissent. Granted, few if any pianists in the history of performance have argued their case with greater force or backed their ideas with a more ferocious technical mastery but, to take one classic example, the wind-blown, bouncing staccato at the end of each phrase of the opening Prelude is surely perverse. Here, as elsewhere, Gould asserts that the piano's percussive rather than sustaining quality is its joy rather than limitation. Plainly, he has no desire for a 'vocal' conception; except, perhaps, in the strange assortment of grunts and wheezes that invariably punctuates his glittering advance and presentation of Bach's polyphony. Tempos can be as helplessly becalmed as the Ancient Marriner, or as manically powered and propelled as a high-speed machine, with lines and structures beaten into focus and submission. The relentless dripping-tap staccato in the eighth Prelude's left-hand minims or the asceticism in the tenth Prelude is sufficiently mischievous to make one inclined to answer outrage with outrage. Like Lord Capulet to his daughter Juliet, one can only question, ''how now, my headstrong, where have you been gadding?''. A maverick to the last, Gould would have relished such responses, delighting in turning convention topsy-turvy and leaving romantic, soft-focus notions of the 48 to others. Yet in their very radicalism Gould's performances are often in danger of creating their own orthodoxy. What one misses is Bach's plenty, the sort of rich humanity discovered by Edwin Fischer and Tatiana Nikolaieva, artists Gould would doubtless have dismissed as pianists first and musicians second, more suited to Chopin than to Bach's intellectual rigour.
Mercifully, when you turn to the Partitas you enter another world of musical achievement. Here Gould's alternately celebrated and maligned detache is modified, his touch more subtly weighed and varied. True, his first Menuet in the First Partita is more robust than graceful and his tinkering with registers in the second Menuet will raise hackles as well as eyebrows in some quarters. But elsewhere he conveys a glorious spirit of adventure. His even-handed fleetness in the Third Partita's final Gigue is something to marvel at and the Sixth Partita's opening Toccata—that long and magnificent unfolding—is memorably rapt and expressive. Both here and in the Corrente and Sarabande his playing is so free, supple and improvisatory that it sounds as if created on the spot. Then there are the Goldberg Variations, given a mere two years after the legendary 1955 performance, yet already preparing us for that ''autumnal response'' Gould sought in his final years and so hauntingly achieved in his final 1981 recording, made the year of his death. Tempos are slower, ideas have more room to expand, and Var. 13, to take one memorable example, takes wing with an ethereal delicacy and with left-hand melodic outlines traced and flashed before us in a manner exclusive to this performance. What rhythmic poise he finds in Var. 17 and how remarkable that his greater mobility in Var. 25 (Landowska's 'black pearl') allows for an even greater sense of desolation, for a numbing sense of grief almost too powerful for expression. Rudimentary Bach, too, sounds far from rudimentary from Gould. His encores of separate Preludes and Fugues are all given with a unique verve and clarity. Not all of the six Little Preludes are little—the first is most imposing—and the final Fughetta is notably racy. I have already discussed Gould's reading of the 15Three-Part Inventions (9/94) and his qualities of a timeless wit and vivacity.
Overall, Gould's charisma and originality defy comparison. A true case of the 'egotistical sublime', his concern for his own significance in the musical scheme of things was countered by his whimsical claim, ''I am not a pianist—I am a man of communication, a composer, and a Canadian writer who plays the piano in his spare time''.'
From Gould the so-called Old Testament of the Keyboard is shaken up to become an Iconoclastic rather than New Testament. All romantic potential is rudely swept into oblivion and many of these performances affect one like third degree treatment, where blinding clarity is coupled with an autocracy that dares you to dissent. Granted, few if any pianists in the history of performance have argued their case with greater force or backed their ideas with a more ferocious technical mastery but, to take one classic example, the wind-blown, bouncing staccato at the end of each phrase of the opening Prelude is surely perverse. Here, as elsewhere, Gould asserts that the piano's percussive rather than sustaining quality is its joy rather than limitation. Plainly, he has no desire for a 'vocal' conception; except, perhaps, in the strange assortment of grunts and wheezes that invariably punctuates his glittering advance and presentation of Bach's polyphony. Tempos can be as helplessly becalmed as the Ancient Marriner, or as manically powered and propelled as a high-speed machine, with lines and structures beaten into focus and submission. The relentless dripping-tap staccato in the eighth Prelude's left-hand minims or the asceticism in the tenth Prelude is sufficiently mischievous to make one inclined to answer outrage with outrage. Like Lord Capulet to his daughter Juliet, one can only question, ''how now, my headstrong, where have you been gadding?''. A maverick to the last, Gould would have relished such responses, delighting in turning convention topsy-turvy and leaving romantic, soft-focus notions of the 48 to others. Yet in their very radicalism Gould's performances are often in danger of creating their own orthodoxy. What one misses is Bach's plenty, the sort of rich humanity discovered by Edwin Fischer and Tatiana Nikolaieva, artists Gould would doubtless have dismissed as pianists first and musicians second, more suited to Chopin than to Bach's intellectual rigour.
Mercifully, when you turn to the Partitas you enter another world of musical achievement. Here Gould's alternately celebrated and maligned detache is modified, his touch more subtly weighed and varied. True, his first Menuet in the First Partita is more robust than graceful and his tinkering with registers in the second Menuet will raise hackles as well as eyebrows in some quarters. But elsewhere he conveys a glorious spirit of adventure. His even-handed fleetness in the Third Partita's final Gigue is something to marvel at and the Sixth Partita's opening Toccata—that long and magnificent unfolding—is memorably rapt and expressive. Both here and in the Corrente and Sarabande his playing is so free, supple and improvisatory that it sounds as if created on the spot. Then there are the Goldberg Variations, given a mere two years after the legendary 1955 performance, yet already preparing us for that ''autumnal response'' Gould sought in his final years and so hauntingly achieved in his final 1981 recording, made the year of his death. Tempos are slower, ideas have more room to expand, and Var. 13, to take one memorable example, takes wing with an ethereal delicacy and with left-hand melodic outlines traced and flashed before us in a manner exclusive to this performance. What rhythmic poise he finds in Var. 17 and how remarkable that his greater mobility in Var. 25 (Landowska's 'black pearl') allows for an even greater sense of desolation, for a numbing sense of grief almost too powerful for expression. Rudimentary Bach, too, sounds far from rudimentary from Gould. His encores of separate Preludes and Fugues are all given with a unique verve and clarity. Not all of the six Little Preludes are little—the first is most imposing—and the final Fughetta is notably racy. I have already discussed Gould's reading of the 15
Overall, Gould's charisma and originality defy comparison. A true case of the 'egotistical sublime', his concern for his own significance in the musical scheme of things was countered by his whimsical claim, ''I am not a pianist—I am a man of communication, a composer, and a Canadian writer who plays the piano in his spare time''.'
Bach Goldberg Variations; Three-Part Inventions Nos 2-15
Bach Keyboard Works
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