My Introduction/Nigel Kennedy

Ypou are being too nice. When you say 'You are undoubtably right that GG is not the definitive Bach performer, but isn't it nice that different interpretations can co-exist.' how can i not agree? This is not a proper way to start a war! :JPS:

Of course, you know what I think about Gould. But I was hoping someone would jump and get the bait; then I could go on into all the details of why I don't like (as a matter of fact - I really detest) Gould's playing.

As it is, I must agree that he performed a wonderful feat: he brought pop listening people to Bach and that is no mean feat.

[Flaming mood]
But of course he only did that by turning Bach into an elephantesque monstrosity.
[/Flaming mood].

Well. Let's see if someone joins the fray...:chop: :micro:

 

It's very hard to have a war with someone you mostly agree with:chunder:

I think GG on the whole took a different look at Bach, and then came up with something. I think his way of preparing a performance led to a lot of random playing. It may have been heartfelt, but it wasn't headthought. I'm not the worlds biggest Bach listener, the orchestral heavies are more my thing, but when I dip my toes in I do find his playing interesting:yikes:

Haven't heard Mr Jarrett and his versions of Bach, am sure that would be equally 'interesting', maybe he would play up the :boogie: factor.

My main rail is against identikit performers of anything who follow the rules and don't think about the music. I quite take your point you made earlier on a previous incarnation of this forum that GG had his own set of rules which was to ignore the rules so to speak.

As long as performers don't make like:sheep: and what they produce is interesting I have no grouch with them.

RDS long may the:force: be with you. Maybe we should start a performers we like and don't like thread here, that should really get things going:duck:

 

Aside: GG's "Solitude" trilogy (three "sound poems" he put together for Canadian radio) are exceptional, especially the first, "The Idea of North". Even RdS may like them.

-- Ian*

*who likes Gould's piano playing as well

 

Sideshow:

No, I don't know that... Perhaps I would like it. I found his piece 'so you want to write a fugue' very amusing.

Your Summitship:

I totally agree with you: too many people play the way they were instructed to do it and add nothing personal to their views. Mind you: I respect that; if that makes them happy so much the better for them.

In terms of Bach's clavier music, the real innovators were, apart from Wanda Landowska, three interpreters: Helmut Walcha - an objectivistic and structural view of music; Ralph Kirkpatrick - a strong and rhythmic, sometimes absolutely irresistible poetry; and Gustav Leonhardt - the complete opposite from Walcha; he said the harpsichord was meant to 'say' the musical sentences whereas the piano was meant to sing them. Then, at the opposite of Leonhardt, Kenneth Gilbert just shows Leonhardt is wrong and that the harpsichord can sing as well as the piano...

I like all of them. I perhaps identify myself most with Leonhardt, but I feel Gilbert is more musical - chiefly because I can't achieve what he achieves, whereas I understand Leonhardt quite readily. Walcha's is an imposing view upon music, and after listening to his playing I sometimes wonder why I try to play at all - until I compare the results: we (n.b.; HE and me) couldn't be more different: polar opposites, really.

But they all had INTEGRITY, that is, coherence. I may not like the way they play, but I understand they couldn't do it otherwise and remain honest.

That also goes for a lot of other interpreters (Karajan, K. Boehm, even Bernstein, whom I really don't like, Pollinni, and yes, even Kempff).

About Gould, I agree with what the late Scott Ross said about him: he was very intolerant musically, but he admired Gould's courage. If I could be convinced it was courage and not plain perverse narcissism, I'd think the same way.

Nevertheless I agree with you: he did it differently, his own way. That's something important. But so did Walcha, Leonhardt and Gilbert, and they weren't praised so highly. That's just because they played Bach the way they felt it should be played (and damm the others); and not the way others would recognize was a different way - a show off affair, quite below the dignity of a serious interpreter. That said, sometimes he (Gould) got it right...

No smilies this time- And I know I wrote boring stuff so, just this one:
:zzzz:

 

I thought this smilie illustrated that even those of us who enjoy Kennedy, still have a sense of humour.

I am also a fan of Goulds Goldberg Variations - seems i am the peasant of the classical forum I have just uploaded a new smilie for your pleasure (note the swollen head)

:gould:


I think our Lord speaks a lot of sense once more:

And as for a war - your attempts are pitiful

 

Magnificent. I was thinking yesterday if there was such a smilie!!

Well, I can't very well start a 'Gould is ugly' thread! But I agree this has been a bit weak...

 

I agree very lame. Trouble is you just can't argue when you really mean the same thing.
Anyway where do you get the cool smilies from?

 

Can you get an organist's smilie?

And I agree with your interpretation of Nigel Kennedy's smilie. I just couldn't resist it.

Is the 'favourite' interpreter still on?

 

Just through trawling the inane wastes of the virtual universe in moments of supreme mental sedateness. It is also possible to create your own - something i may have to do, with the requests that have been coming in I'm just a tad lazy. The organ King now wants an organ smilie

The Nigel Kennedy smilie was just called 'violin' - i RENAMED it 'nigel'. Hence that was my self mocking interpretation.

??sorry, after acouple of glasses of red wine, i'm not sure what you mean?

cheers

Its very civilised in this classical sub-forum, very cosy - have i passed my probationary period yet?

 

Red wine cookie, I thought it would have been chocolate chip, or my favourite honey and macadema with white chocolate.
Course you have, everyone is welcome here

 

The red wine is to wash down the McVities Boasters.

:cookie:

 

I've never heard Kennedy live, so I'm working from the commercial recordings here. The Brahms concerto (with Tennstedt IIRC) was beautifully played but soooooooo sloooooooooooooow - it ran to, what, 50 minutes or something absurd? Gorgeous violin playing but just a bit too eccentric for me. The Elgar (with Handley) OTOH was superb, definitely a "reference"-type recording for me (haven't heard his recent remake). Can't really remember anything in particular about his Sibelius and Tchaikovsky - they were more middle-of-the-road as far as I can remember.

Heifetz was a little hit-and-miss IME - the earlier, mono recordings tended to be technically superb but curiously soulless, whereas his stereo Brahms and Tchaikovsky (for example) were relatively rough-and-ready with a surprising amount of wrong notes and scratchy bits yet at the same time very satisfying in their own way. I think Maxim Vengerov occupies much the same niche nowadays - he has at least as much swagger and panache as Heifetz did, and also an absolutely fabulously secure technique. That said though - as I've said before - the single best example of violin playing I've ever heard, recorded or live, is Frank Peter Zimmermann's set of the Ysaye solo sonatas on EMI - an absolutely thrilling CD, and technically just unbelievably immaculate. Reviews of virtuoso recitals often describe players "not putting a foot wrong" when in fact they merely mean that the playing was technically adequate, as in for example Accardo's or Perlman's recordings of the Paganini Caprices - but listen to the Zimmermann Ysaye set and you'll hear as close to perfection in violinistic terms as you ever will.

All of this isn't to say the music comes off as just a series of display-pieces - quite the contrary in fact, and I for one (admittedly as a violinist myself) find this music as played by Zimmermann more wholly satisfying than, for example, the Bach solo sonatas.
There, I've said it :duck:

 

Want to hear oh so satisfying Paganini, have a listen to Michael Rabin