@mozgren The "idiot" probably isn't actually disagreeing with Gould so much as he's giving him questions that allow Gould to say things he'd like to say. It's not like a political interview where the reporter walked out and grilled the subject into submission; the interviewer's just asking Gould questions that allow him to say interesting things. If he just said "Yep, you're right," the interview wouldn't have let Gould say anything interesting.
@ 1:25 Composers before the puritanism of the classical period and modern times frequently recycled and transcribed music. Vivaldi's concerto for 4 violins in Bm was transcribed by Bach for 4 harpsichords - clearly the respect of "imagined sonority" then is a concern of modern pretentiousness and not historical practices. Think of the Art of Fugue, where the melodic lines are written in SATB. It is 100% playable on a keyboard instrument, but clearly Bach didn't want the music to be limited
By the way Bruno is Glenn's friend and is just playing devils advocate for this. Gould thought makes the perfect point that, the music does not dictate a certain sonority for a specific instrument. I have heard Bach fugues for 4 saxophones that sounded great. I love the orchestra transcriptions of the organ works. I have heard Bach on the steel drum and the guy told me that Bach was the best practice on the steel drum because it was so difficult. In any case, Bach rearranged his own music a lot.
I always get the sense when Gould talks about recording, and importantly, the relation between audience and performer, and furthermore, viewing himself as a composer, that he doesn't attempt to achieve the 'platonic form' of Bach. I'm imagining Gould considering himself as an audience of Bach, and given what Gould says about passive audiences, Gould would probably view it as inappropriate to attempt to achieve Bach's pure vision, and rather more appropriate to find a personal vision through Bach
I love Bach, and I like Gould's Bach playing. I also love Mozart and I am less keen on Gould's Mozart. But Gould was an intelligent guy and even when he played with extreme eccentricity, he was usually making a coherent argument about the music. Whereas most of the "historically informed performance" school seem to be far less coherent in their thinking. But then musicians generally talk a lot of shit, and Gould was no exception. (Bach was not a great talker.)
Oh and this stuff about only playing Bach on the harpsichord is nonsense. Bach wrote the same pieces played om such diverse instruments as two violins and then two harpsichords: a greater difference in timbre and expression you would struggle to find in music. He also transcribed Vilvaldi’s orchestral work for organ.
@Jitpring I personally believe that J S Bach wrote for the ages. It is why his Harpsichord, Organ, and all his other music works equally on original instruments to synthesizers. On Gould's playing of Bach (or Gibbons) on the piano, unlike so many other pianists, he did not over use the damper pedal. Some of Bach's music really comes alive on the Harpsichord. Glen Gould's playing of Bach ran the full course from inspired to mediocre. Fortunately most often the former and rarely the latter.
Music means many different things to many different people. ---It's all about interpretation. In my opinion, (and many other opinions as well) Agree that Glenn Gould was a great interpretor of the music of J.S.Bach. Wheather you personally agree or disagree is only a matter of your opinion. ----'You don't have to know how to prepare a great meal in order to be qualified to enjoy it.' (think this is what you mean, eh?) ...Then, I agree with you.
Imagine that interviewer as a debt collector on the phone. "if you were to pay perhaps 30 dollars or perhaps 20 dollars, well, *ponderous breathy pause*, well perhaps it wouldn't be outside of the realms of the imagination"
I meant to say Bruno mentions just one popular argument for not violating Bach's music. The other popular argument militates in favor of interpretive freedom, but unfortunately it suffers from absurd reasoning. Gould's argument is the best of the 3, but he still needs to flesh his case out some more (e.g. by emphasizing the similarities between Bach's mind and modern minds). Instruments may change, but the mind's ability to compose music remains a human constant. Ergo no "violation" of music.
The interviewer, Bruno, is quite good (and neutral). He points out, rather clearly, that there are two popular arguments for why it is wrong to play outside the sonorities of the instruments Bach knew. Gould effectively counters these arguments with his hypothosis that Bach's understanding of music was not "enslaved" by the sonorities/capacities of the musical instruments of his time. This argument starts with the notion that musical understanding begins in the mind and ends in the mind.
Ok then, please provide a link to an original manuscript, of Bach for example, where you can see any ornament, tempo or dynamic marking. Nowadays is played with ornaments but was not written with it. BIG difference. We can only suppose it was played with ornaments, since we dont have any recordings...
This is a curious--almost surreal-- conversation, half-semi-literate drivel and half subtle scholarship. I urge you to watch the conversation between Gould and Menuhin on UA-cam as an object lesson on how to conduct a discussion. Fuzzfactory, ukillodu take heed; though I like what you, ukillodu, say about "how he understands music".
You guys do know that this whole conversation was written beforehand by Gould right? That's what Gould did when he did interviews. Notice how Bruno Monsaingeon looks so awkward trying to act like he's having a real conversation-he's staring at cue cards the whole time.
There are some people who are living caricatures of themselves - a cartoonist could not imagine a more perfect drawing - and this moderator is one who fits that bill.
I personally prefer the harpsichord, but Gould raises a good point. I don't think Bach would have been a slave to the instrument for which he wrote music.
Foreign, not foreign. We're missing the point here. He plays in such a way to best use his natural aura as a person and musician to bring clarity to what exactly Bach was thinking when he made the piece. Some play with driving rhythmic clarity, and graceful precision, while others rely more on tasteful use of phrasing, sonorities, and emphasized singing tone rather than a balance of each element in Bach's music. If art was subject to the times, then it would be hideously superficial.
uohhjojo, crude vocabulary... Well, I do not deny his shining interpretations, but truth is someting that you will understand if you were a scholar musician, if not, your gona be fascinated with his gestures and pieces of buffoonery.
The music of Bach works on a lot of instruments that Bach had never heard of. It's just sublime music and surely no-one can deny that, played properly, Bach's music sounds fabulous played on the piano. I agree with Gould here.
@Matthewfawr Indeed. I love Bach and I am selftaught pianist and I love to play Bach. When I began my musical education I saw an organ in the assembely hall at the school. And I tought: "Im going to learn how to play the organ". And today I have learnt the piano for about one year! xD
to mario: "That's why every little tempo marking, ornament, etc. is there in the first place. :) " There were no such things in Baroque period, they started in classical and exploded in romantic. And so no one knows how the music should be played. And so, especially in Baroque everyone do what they want.
8aetroya8, this is bulls**t. Gould just tries to understand Bach's way of thinking. I believe that too, that Bach would've used a piano, because he exploited fully the properties of each instruments, so, why not the piano, that has something that the harpsichord doesn't: A DYNAMIC RANGE!
Are you aware of the discussion that just took place in this video clip? You should watch it again. Some people will never appreciate Bach, or Ives, or Carter ... some will. Same with interpretation.
My point is that Bach used the technology available to him. I too am sure he would have used a piano and any other instrument available. Didn't he have more of a reputation as an improviser than a composer during his own lifetime?The many transcriptions for instruments not available in his time demonstrate how flexible baroque 'style' and Bach in particular can be. It seems purism is of the modern age - not that I've a problem with the excellent contemporary-instrument recordings available now.
@Japadian But just for the sake of curiosity... how you know that they used ornamnets? No on the music, no original records to listen to.. how you are so sure?? Just teasing ... ;-)
The only relevant article is the transcendent or abstract nature of Bach's music. It can be played on virtually any instrument or combination of instruments and loses nothing (often "gains" something depending on its audience). Whereas music of Debussy -as well as other great colorists- is highly contingent on the instruments for which it was written. BTW, I agree with ipmoic. By cutting off this lively discussion, one gets the impression you're trying to manipulate one's conclusion.
Okay. I withdraw the word 'idiot.' However...I think this man sounds like one of the many pompous purists around - especially on the BBC - in those days.
@MrChirpsky Beethoven is a great colorist. I think it's because Bach managed to be so productive that he made music that was beyond his own subjectivity. His early works were all much more personal. Later on he gets so good at writing and the whole capacity of it makes it more or less a genre itself.
"He was a very practical man in most ways as we know." And in which ways WASN'T he a practical man? Every syllable out of this man's motor mouth is despicable.
@stephenykevin Please upload THE WHOLE conversation. You will get a ton of views and every around the world will thank you for letting us hear Goulds thoughts like this. Come on, dont be lazy!
@Japadian Of course they used it.... by reading just the last posts you are missing the point of the whole thing, It was about interpretation, speed, dynamic etc... Someone was saying that you must follow the marking, ornamnets on the score of Bach music, I simply replied that there is nothing on it, no speed, no ornaments no dynamic because it was simply not in use in Baroque music to write them down. A pp or FF on harpsychord??
Tureck plays Bach with divinity, not Gould. Their sense of space are quite different. To play divinely one must feel divinity. Just as one can sense divinity in a person by his/her demeanor and tone of voice, one can do the same by listening to his/her music playing. Divinity is not something that the brainy and eccentric Gould could or would attain. He is more intrigued by the art of precision playing, contrapuntal symmetry, and clarity. in playing
Gould's entire point at the end, Bach was about the music not the instrument.
hilarious.
1:30
he was imitating his German accent.
@mozgren The "idiot" probably isn't actually disagreeing with Gould so much as he's giving him questions that allow Gould to say things he'd like to say. It's not like a political interview where the reporter walked out and grilled the subject into submission; the interviewer's just asking Gould questions that allow him to say interesting things. If he just said "Yep, you're right," the interview wouldn't have let Gould say anything interesting.
More so than u think as Could scripted all of his interviews from back to front.
"I don't think Bach was......."........what? Was what? Where the hell is the rest of the video?
That's all for today folks
The Glenn Gould Collection XIV - The Question Of Instrument
ua-cam.com/video/38VMAfSmL8Q/v-deo.html
The whole thing here:
The Glenn Gould Collection XIV - The Question Of Instrument
ua-cam.com/video/38VMAfSmL8Q/v-deo.html
@ 1:25
Composers before the puritanism of the classical period and modern times frequently recycled and transcribed music. Vivaldi's concerto for 4 violins in Bm was transcribed by Bach for 4 harpsichords - clearly the respect of "imagined sonority" then is a concern of modern pretentiousness and not historical practices.
Think of the Art of Fugue, where the melodic lines are written in SATB. It is 100% playable on a keyboard instrument, but clearly Bach didn't want the music to be limited
Gould was genious and crazy. When you can play piano like that you don't want to know what goes on in his head.
By the way Bruno is Glenn's friend and is just playing devils advocate for this. Gould thought makes the perfect point that, the music does not dictate a certain sonority for a specific instrument. I have heard Bach fugues for 4 saxophones that sounded great. I love the orchestra transcriptions of the organ works. I have heard Bach on the steel drum and the guy told me that Bach was the best practice on the steel drum because it was so difficult. In any case, Bach rearranged his own music a lot.
Forgive me for souding like a ridicolous peacemaker, but I like Bach on both the harpsichord and piano. (But above all the organ!) :-D
I always get the sense when Gould talks about recording, and importantly, the relation between audience and performer, and furthermore, viewing himself as a composer, that he doesn't attempt to achieve the 'platonic form' of Bach.
I'm imagining Gould considering himself as an audience of Bach, and given what Gould says about passive audiences, Gould would probably view it as inappropriate to attempt to achieve Bach's pure vision, and rather more appropriate to find a personal vision through Bach
I love Bach, and I like Gould's Bach playing. I also love Mozart and I am less keen on Gould's Mozart. But Gould was an intelligent guy and even when he played with extreme eccentricity, he was usually making a coherent argument about the music. Whereas most of the "historically informed performance" school seem to be far less coherent in their thinking. But then musicians generally talk a lot of shit, and Gould was no exception. (Bach was not a great talker.)
he's dead and alive at once ;).dead physicaly - alive in music :)).
Oh and this stuff about only playing Bach on the harpsichord is nonsense. Bach wrote the same pieces played om such diverse instruments as two violins and then two harpsichords: a greater difference in timbre and expression you would struggle to find in music. He also transcribed Vilvaldi’s orchestral work for organ.
Gould's reaction at 1:30 is priceless.
Absolutely!! That was the first time I really fell in love with Bach's music and Gould's playing...
This maybe surprise to some. But Gould entirely wrote these "dialogues" beforehand. He wrote his part as well as Bruno's.
The interviewer in Bruno Monsaingeon.
@Jitpring I personally believe that J S Bach wrote for the ages. It is why his Harpsichord, Organ, and all his other music works equally on original instruments to synthesizers. On Gould's playing of Bach (or Gibbons) on the piano, unlike so many other pianists, he did not over use the damper pedal. Some of Bach's music really comes alive on the Harpsichord. Glen Gould's playing of Bach ran the full course from inspired to mediocre. Fortunately most often the former and rarely the latter.
Music means many different things to many different people.
---It's all about interpretation.
In my opinion,
(and many other opinions as well)
Agree that Glenn Gould was a great interpretor of the music of J.S.Bach.
Wheather you personally agree or disagree is only a matter of your opinion.
----'You don't have to know how to prepare a great meal in order to be qualified to enjoy it.' (think this is what you mean, eh?)
...Then, I agree with you.
Imagine that interviewer as a debt collector on the phone. "if you were to pay perhaps 30 dollars or perhaps 20 dollars, well, *ponderous breathy pause*, well perhaps it wouldn't be outside of the realms of the imagination"
ROFLMFAO
I meant to say Bruno mentions just one popular argument for not violating Bach's music. The other popular argument militates in favor of interpretive freedom, but unfortunately it suffers from absurd reasoning. Gould's argument is the best of the 3, but he still needs to flesh his case out some more (e.g. by emphasizing the similarities between Bach's mind and modern minds). Instruments may change, but the mind's ability to compose music remains a human constant. Ergo no "violation" of music.
The interviewer, Bruno, is quite good (and neutral). He points out, rather clearly, that there are two popular arguments for why it is wrong to play outside the sonorities of the instruments Bach knew. Gould effectively counters these arguments with his hypothosis that Bach's understanding of music was not "enslaved" by the sonorities/capacities of the musical instruments of his time. This argument starts with the notion that musical understanding begins in the mind and ends in the mind.
Ok then, please provide a link to an original manuscript, of Bach for example, where you can see any ornament, tempo or dynamic marking.
Nowadays is played with ornaments but was not written with it.
BIG difference.
We can only suppose it was played with ornaments, since we dont have any recordings...
This is a curious--almost surreal-- conversation, half-semi-literate drivel and half subtle scholarship. I urge you to watch the conversation between Gould and Menuhin on UA-cam as an object lesson on how to conduct a discussion. Fuzzfactory, ukillodu take heed; though I like what you, ukillodu, say about "how he understands music".
You guys do know that this whole conversation was written beforehand by Gould right? That's what Gould did when he did interviews. Notice how Bruno Monsaingeon looks so awkward trying to act like he's having a real conversation-he's staring at cue cards the whole time.
There are some people who are living caricatures of themselves - a cartoonist could not imagine a more perfect drawing - and this moderator is one who fits that bill.
I personally prefer the harpsichord, but Gould raises a good point. I don't think Bach would have been a slave to the instrument for which he wrote music.
What are they sitting on?
A pair of hand-knitted cardigans?
.
Yah, mmm, Yah if I may say so Bruno.
.
cheers.
from,
del-boy.
Gould plays with his style of precision but the problem with him is he doesn't play divinely. Tureck, his idol, plays divinely.
Glenn Gould was a great pianist. Where is he right now? I would like to offer him congragulation for his years as a pianist.
lo que daria por saber ingles y enteder lo que dice- alguien me puede ayudar? Help me!!!!! i can undertand
Maybe because you ask yourself how is it possible that this pianist is so famous and well-recognized?
Bach has a soul. His soul is in his music. Music is played with an instrument.
blah blah blah....
A lot of talking but unfortunately not a lot of writing (music)....
@fuckshitass911 at least he could play Bach better than anyone else ever to live :P
Dear imslicc,
Yah! Yah, yah; you are absolutely right.
.
Cheers.
from
del-boy.
very good comment, and right on the dot.
These two need to get laid fast, lol!!!! Just kidding. Gould is a superstar!
Imagine them bothn played by Peter Sellars. It becomes that much more funny.
He was a hypocrite, a liar, a motor mouth and completely out of his mind.
If you love bach, you cannot admire gould. They are uncompatible things.
Gould is crazy! You can tell by his speed of his talking, and how he keeps looking up!
He is the Theodore Robert Bundy of music - completely deranged and pure evil.
I hope both of you all these years later have developed even a semblance of a brain
nice glasses^^
Foreign, not foreign. We're missing the point here. He plays in such a way to best use his natural aura as a person and musician to bring clarity to what exactly Bach was thinking when he made the piece. Some play with driving rhythmic clarity, and graceful precision, while others rely more on tasteful use of phrasing, sonorities, and emphasized singing tone rather than a balance of each element in Bach's music. If art was subject to the times, then it would be hideously superficial.
uohhjojo, crude vocabulary... Well, I do not deny his shining interpretations, but truth is someting that you will understand if you were a scholar musician, if not, your gona be fascinated with his gestures and pieces of buffoonery.
Give me any decent quality musicians who isn't a nut? lol!
The music of Bach works on a lot of instruments that Bach had never heard of. It's just sublime music and surely no-one can deny that, played properly, Bach's music sounds fabulous played on the piano. I agree with Gould here.
it's not about how he plays, but how he understands music.
who cares about the instrument having the music by Bach
I mean yeah
hahahaa
@Matthewfawr Indeed. I love Bach and I am selftaught pianist and I love to play Bach. When I began my musical education I saw an organ in the assembely hall at the school. And I tought: "Im going to learn how to play the organ". And today I have learnt the piano for about one year! xD
i think bach just sounds better on a harpsichord
no ornaments in Baroque music?? Baroque had the MOST ornaments, that's even why it's called Baroque!
to mario:
"That's why every little tempo marking, ornament, etc. is there in the first place. :) "
There were no such things in Baroque period, they started in classical and exploded in romantic.
And so no one knows how the music should be played.
And so, especially in Baroque everyone do what they want.
8aetroya8, this is bulls**t. Gould just tries to understand Bach's way of thinking. I believe that too, that Bach would've used a piano, because he exploited fully the properties of each instruments, so, why not the piano, that has something that the harpsichord doesn't: A DYNAMIC RANGE!
that other dude looks kinda like john lennon
Are you aware of the discussion that just took place in this video clip? You should watch it again.
Some people will never appreciate Bach, or Ives, or Carter ... some will.
Same with interpretation.
My point is that Bach used the technology available to him. I too am sure he would have used a piano and any other instrument available. Didn't he have more of a reputation as an improviser than a composer during his own lifetime?The many transcriptions for instruments not available in his time demonstrate how flexible baroque 'style' and Bach in particular can be. It seems purism is of the modern age - not that I've a problem with the excellent contemporary-instrument recordings available now.
@Japadian
But just for the sake of curiosity... how you know that they used ornamnets?
No on the music, no original records to listen to..
how you are so sure??
Just teasing ... ;-)
The only relevant article is the transcendent or abstract nature of Bach's music. It can be played on virtually any instrument or combination of instruments and loses nothing (often "gains" something depending on its audience). Whereas music of Debussy -as well as other great colorists- is highly contingent on the instruments for which it was written.
BTW, I agree with ipmoic. By cutting off this lively discussion, one gets the impression you're trying to manipulate one's conclusion.
lol i read your comment before it happened. that was pretty funny
Okay. I withdraw the word 'idiot.' However...I think this man sounds like one of the many pompous purists around - especially on the BBC - in those days.
@lakecomo33 Of course. But sometimes one have to respect the composer aswell.
@MrChirpsky Beethoven is a great colorist. I think it's because Bach managed to be so productive that he made music that was beyond his own subjectivity. His early works were all much more personal. Later on he gets so good at writing and the whole capacity of it makes it more or less a genre itself.
"That nut is a genius."
"He was a very practical man in most ways as we know." And in which ways WASN'T he a practical man?
Every syllable out of this man's motor mouth is despicable.
@stephenykevin Please upload THE WHOLE conversation. You will get a ton of views and every around the world will thank you for letting us hear Goulds thoughts like this. Come on, dont be lazy!
@zinpgh I think it is in the extras of the Goldberg Variations, the DVD, from 1981.
@lakecomo33 i agree...but i think that u cannot ever compose something as bach, because he was...bach....
@dziady1 my dear, it is obvious, that your musical education ended in chopin's valses...pity...
That's very perceptive. You make a strong point in that good music IS good music!
@troppofiato is that a fact? hmmm... any way i think of it... it sounds cuckoo for him to do that lol...
bla, bla, bla. I hate how this men plays Bach!
other candidates for crazy...
"Six" from T.V. sitcom, "Blossom"
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony
Największy z pianistów świata !
gg was a huge dork.
I think I saw this guy on Hellboy
Evidence for this assertion in this particular case?
Don't talk like that about Bruno Monsaigeon!!
where do I get a pair of prescription glasses like those?
Pretentious Eyewear LTD. on 5th and Nerd St.
@@Pdx616 ROFLMFAO
Which DVD is this from!??!?
Where is this from?
Good editing. Nice place to cut off.
I love these guys
harry potter in his mid 50s
hahaha i agree!!!
Speeks too fast!!
LOL what a shame.
@narhem123 in museums
Yes *please* post the whole interview? Why cut off so abruptly mid flow?
The Glenn Gould Collection XIV - The Question Of Instrument
ua-cam.com/video/38VMAfSmL8Q/v-deo.html
Is there another part to this interview? I'd love to hear the rest of it.
The Glenn Gould Collection XIV - The Question Of Instrument
ua-cam.com/video/38VMAfSmL8Q/v-deo.html
Hahahaha...:!
this is great!
@dziady1
The Question of Instrument.
thanks
@Japadian
Of course they used it.... by reading just the last posts you are missing the point of the whole thing,
It was about interpretation, speed, dynamic etc...
Someone was saying that you must follow the marking, ornamnets on the score of Bach music, I simply replied that there is nothing on it, no speed, no ornaments no dynamic because it was simply not in use in Baroque music to write them down.
A pp or FF on harpsychord??
Tureck plays Bach with divinity, not Gould.
Their sense of space are quite different.
To play divinely one must feel divinity.
Just as one can sense divinity in a person by his/her demeanor and tone of voice, one can do the same by listening to his/her music playing.
Divinity is not something that the brainy and eccentric Gould could or would attain. He is more intrigued by the art of precision playing, contrapuntal symmetry, and clarity.
in playing