How extraordinary! I've not seen this in 35 years. How lovely of Bill Buckley to give a full hour of national television over to a discussion of Glenn Gould.
Miss Tureck was my piano teacher's teacher, so some humble way I am her student. :) Her Goldberg Variations interpretation is almost as eccentric as Gould's, but in some ways I prefer it.
Mrs Turek's considerations are sublime, the others unfortunately deliver general blabla without any commanding message.She knows by doing they do just by knowing
We continue to discuss music because it's important to us. Music inspires ideas, feelings, camaraderie and points of view. Long may music rouse our best thoughts, lively conversations and solitary musical musings.
They are two different art forms. Appreciate them as they are and stop with the comparisons and the conservative view that the live concert is better. I would gladly give up concerts over recordings. Thank God for recordings. It is about the music. I have never felt a connection to the artist on stage and do not believe their imaginary connection with the audience but only the distractions and annoyances of my fellow concert goers. I agree with Tim. I live in Vancouver Ca not the best for concerts and far from Carnegie Hall around the corner.
Amazing to see Bill Buckley and guests discuss Glenn Gould's idiosyncratic tastes: giving a performance versus playing in a recording studio. Buckley himself was a harpsichordist of some talent. And often used his program to discuss various aspects of music revealing especially his adoration of Bach's works. I may not have agreed with Buckley's right wing politics, but I found his patrician tastes especially regarding music riveting. Thank you so much for this post.
Artists like Gould, Janos Starker, Heifetz-perfectionists-whose engagement took more the form of a “for” the audience than a “with” them saw the reception afterward as all social and the performance as all business. That didn’t preclude interaction, but it precluded the sort of flirtation that Horowitz, Rubinstein, Pierre Fournier delighted in. Starker would actually mock specific showbiz aspects that intruded on performances in master classes. Horowitz, on the other hand, used to say concerts were for entertainment, they were “not lectures” for him and considered Gould “a little meshuggah.”
The back door pleasure, so to speak, of watching this is that the RU-vid channel for Buckley’s Firing Line show has never allowed comments. And Buckley was right in pointing out that Ms. Tureck was incorrect in saying that most people can appreciate a classical piece by reading the music as it’s written on the page. Very few among us have that ability.
Thirty five years later ,in the midst of a pandemic, Gould appears to have been correct. The transcendental concert experience Ms. Tureck refers to is rare. You have bad acoustics, untuned subpar instruments, tough travel, people who cough and open candy wrappers, and frequent memory lapses. I saw Gould in live performance. I have little memory of that performance but have worn out almost every recording he made. Thank goodness he put this emphasis on recording. It should also be mentioned that Gould had the luxury of not having to do public performance to pay bills. Not the case with most classical musicians today. At the very least they have to tour to support their recordings and videos. Got to say that Ms. Tureck wrecks this interview with loathsome self promotion and boring “I’m an expert” pronouncements. Her interview is as uninteresting as her Bach
@@Geopholus She was a trailblazer in her focused devotion to Bach. I do find her tempi on the slow side and her tone a little heavy handed. The interview put me off a bit.
Gould said he never felt a connection to the audience I never connected with person on stage. I used to argue with a man who said he went to concerts hoping to see or hear a fuck up.
