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I don't know how many Glenn Gould fans there are on Ballet Alert, but I am certainly a passionate one. :bow: Here is a link to an NPR page that discusses this new 80-CD release. I am simply drooling over it. I have never heard an equal to Gould's "Goldberg Variations."

Glenn Gould

Now to find a way, in my latest self-imposed economy of thrift, to pay for it. :o

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I don't know how many Glenn Gould fans there are on Ballet Alert, but I am certainly a passionate one. :bow: Here is a link to an NPR page that discusses this new 80-CD release. I am simply drooling over it. I have never heard an equal to Gould's "Goldberg Variations."

Glenn Gould

Now to find a way, in my latest self-imposed economy of thrift, to pay for it. :o

Oh, good Lord, yes! he's one of the geniuses of Great Pianism of the 20th Century, a thoroughly unique artist, and most of the wild eccentricities are fascinating as well. The G Major Prelude from Book II of the WTC is in its own little minute, quite as incredible as his work in the big pieces. I mean--that was before robots and faked recordings--and this little piece alone sounds the whir of a lyrebird. He is also great, as you probably know, in Mozart sometimes too; and his great passion for 'The Siegfried Idyll' made him have to possess it by transcribing it to piano and recording it. Unfortunately, this magnificent romantic piece is never going to sound as good as it does with Toscanini's glorious orchestra, but Gould probably manages to come up with the most amazing version that would have been possible, because of his extraordinary ear and technique. I think that was an experiment that was mostly for his own enjoyment, but most of what he does is most fascinating, and there is a great deal of it. For myself, I wouldn't even really want the 80 CD's, because most or even all of his work can still be found rather easily, and I prefer to pick and choose.

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Three of my favorite pianists are from Canada: Gould, Robert Silverman, and Angela Hewitt, and they could not be any more different in their playing. Hewitt, daughter of the organist at the main cathedral in Ottawa, plays Bach on the piano as if she were playing an organ, as compared to Gould, who makes the rhythmic structure so apparent. Silverman has a very warm, organic approach to Beethoven and Brahms, a complete contrast to Gould.

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Thank you for the heads up, vagansmom. Speaking for myself as well, I find these supercolossal collections to be of questionable use. If you’re a fan of long standing, you already have a good idea of what you want and don’t want and if you are a newcomer to an artist’s work it’s not always helpful to have too much to deal with at once, especially if said artist was prolific in output. And, as Patrick notes, Gould’s work is not exactly inaccessible. Much of it has already been re-released and is not hard to locate. (I don’t know how much new stuff this set contains.) There is also the matter of shelf space.....

If you do buy it (or even if you don’t) you might check out Gould’s recordings of earlier music by Orlando Gibbons and William Byrd if you haven't already.

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I've got his Gibbons and Byrd recordings, but on audiotape, not CD, and I no longer have a tape player that works. In fact, very little of my collection of music is on CD because my husband and I were very busy paying college tuitions and ballet tuitions till just recently. :excl: So I am gradually converting my music to CD, and using iTunes for the rest of it.

I happen to like the large collections. Maybe it's the teacher in me, or maybe it's the lifelong music student in me, but I like listening to and dissecting another musician's progression through her/his musical life. I like the history of a musician's career, including the duds. :dunno: I like hearing how the nuances change over time, with the acquisition of new technique and new maturity. I enjoy the comparisons. I even like listening - but only to a certain degree, not to the point where it feels like I'm witness to a loss of dignity - to the decline of the skills in later life and seeing how the artist compensates for such. It's the record of a human's life with music, and I very much enjoy sharing in that as an audience.

I think - I know :o - I'm obsessive in this way. When I like someone, I like someone. :bow:

I don't know how much people have checked Gould out on youtube, but there's so much there visually as well as musically. He was constantly taping himself, and there are some very funny recordings posted over there.

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I'm not a pianist myself. Any inkling why he hated Mozart? He played him a little, but grudgingly.

I'm a great Gould fan, and I would recommend a book called, Conversations with Glenn Gould. I believe it was put together by Jonathan Cott.

To me Gould's playing was a way of putting windex on all the parts, allowing you to see right through!

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I think - I know - I'm obsessive in this way. When I like someone, I like someone.

I know what you mean, vagansmom. Sigh. Some years ago I was talking Callas with an acquaintance on the job and rattled off a compare and contrast of the Callas Normas in my possession and he said, "You must really like Norma," with an odd expression on his face. You know, there are fans and there are fans.

I didn't know about the Jonathan Cott book, vipa, thanks. I'll check it out at some point. Cott did one of the best interviews with Balanchine I ever read.

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I didn't know about the Jonathan Cott book, vipa, thanks. I'll check it out at some point. Cott did one of the best interviews with Balanchine I ever read.
The Cott book really is good, and it's still available. Here's the Amazon offering:

http://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Glenn-...718&sr=1-13

It's from an extensive 1970s Rollling Stone interview, along with other material. It's rather short, but captures Gould's intelligence, passion, and individualism quite well.

I looked around for the Balanchine interview and find it's included in Back to a Shadow in the Night (also available from Amazon). The index is fascinating in itself. You have to hand to a writer whose range of interests extends from John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Bob Dylan, and Lou Reed to Stravinsky, Steve Reich, John Adams, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Balanchine (on music):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0634035967...00C#reader-link

I'll be checking the library for this one first, but the Index looks tempting on many levels.

Thanks for the tip, dirac.

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I looked around for the Balanchine interview and find it's included in Back to a Shadow in the Night (also available from Amazon).

This must be one of the two Cott interviews (from Rolling Stone and the L.A. Times) also available as "Two Talks with George Balanchine" in the book "Portrait of Mr. B: Photographs of George Balanchine, with an essay by Lincoln Kirstein."

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