The insanity of abundance!

[Todd]

Exactly, awhile ago someone posted a ludicrous assertion that somehow the likes of Solti, or HvK, or even Lenny, are in decline. They may be LESS popular with certain hardcore classical music fans but not by majority of the general public.

I'm not sure how you could claim that long dead classical musicians are popular at all with the general public in the US today.  Classical music recordings make up a very small fraction of sales in the US, and I would hazard a guess that programs like Great Performances probably reach larger portions of the classical viewing and listening public than all but a few popular releases, such as from Yo-Yo Ma - whose Bach Trios is number three on the Billboard classical charts.  I would think the best way to gauge overall popularity of specific artists would come from album sales, ticket sales, and television ratings. 

This forum, and similar ones, are very insular and do not reflect views of the broader public at all.  My assessment of the relative decline of Gould is based on informal observations of internet boards and publications, both of which cater to fans of the genre.  Move into the general public, and recognition of names like Gould or Karajan or even Bernstein or Horowitz is exceptionally low. 

[Madiel]

I have the right to prefer a certain type of marketing.

Which is exactly what I said. But you seem to be trying to suggest that your preferred kind is less "marketing-like" than other kinds.

[71 dB]

Which is exactly what I said. But you seem to be trying to suggest that your preferred kind is less "marketing-like" than other kinds.

To me it is and that's the reason why I prefer it in the first plece.  0:)

[Mandryka]

In the case of Gould you can see the Canadians working very hard to maintain the name recognition and the status, I'm thinking of the Glenn Gould Foundation, the Glenn Gould prize. It makes me think of how the German and Austrian establishment worked hard to develop Beethoven's media image after he died, and Haydn's.

The discussion is strange, and I'm not sure what it's really about. It seems obvious to me that a reputation with the general public is dependent on communications and marketing - Glenn Gould just as much as Homer.

[Wanderer]

In the case of Gould you can see the Canadians working very hard to maintain the name recognition and the status, I'm thinking of the Glenn Gould Foundation, the Glenn Gould prize. It makes me think of how the German and Austrian establishment worked hard to develop Beethoven's media image after he died, and Haydn's.

The discussion is strange, and I'm not sure what it's really about. It seems obvious to me that a reputation with the general public is dependent on communications and marketing - Glenn Gould just as much as Homer.

With regard to Homer, it's called education.

[71 dB]

Can't believe I didn't respond to this before.  Actually I don't really deal with it. It is clearly a form of obsessive compulsive disorder ( but so what?). My wife, as I have mentioned before, has accused me of 'having an affair' with my CD collection whereas my daughter just thinks I'm mad. However, as I'm now 61 I've decided that things must change and am hanging  on to the wise motto 'Less is More'. So, I have actually started (sort of) to reduce my CD collection by giving away Naxos duplicates, for example, to the charity shop. It is oddly therapeutic. In my 30's, 40's or 50's I would never have considered this but as a lifelong fan of Taoism I think that I should start putting into practice the wisdom of that great ancient Chinese philosopher to live a simpler life. 

It's possible the total appreciation we have of our property is pretty much constant, no matter how much we have. That would explain why even billionaires want to get richer - because we believe owning more increases the appreciation. Whenever I double my classical music collection, I feel I appreciate each CD half as much as before. So, I could have stopped after my first classical CD, but the problem is what am I supposed to do with my life if I don't explore classical music? So, I have kept collecting... 

Luckily there are ways to increase the appreciation of what you have and doing so fighting against the "waning problem". Perhaps those millionaires and billionaires who donate large amounts of their money away to good cause are masters of these mental tricks?

[Florestan]

It seems obvious to me that a reputation with the general public is dependent on communications and marketing - Glenn Gould just as much as Homer.

What Homer recordings would you recommend?

[Jo498]

I find it impossible to even come up with a criterion for whether a classical musician is more "in decline" than another, let alone how to measure it. In classical music there is a very, very small community of hard-core fanatics and a large segment of the population that has enough respect for classical music to have a Beethoven symphony or a recital of Verdi aria's on their shelf or iPod. Do we put more weight on the fact that a greater fraction of the population recognizes the name Glen Gould than the name Richter, that Sony releases more retrospectives of Glen Gould than are released for Richter, or that there are more lunatics searching the internet for out-of-print Richter bootleg recordings?

There are several criteria, all flawed but that does not mean that they are completely worthless.

I think that re-issues or the (almost) continuous presence in the catalogue is a criterion. Of course there are feedback loops but labels would not keep re-issuing stuff that does not sell. Although I am at a loss to understand why they so frequently re-issue stuff that is still in the catalogue. I was told that when he was alive CBS would have recorded anything Gould wanted to do because they were certain it would sell well enough. And apparently it is also worthwhile to dig out old broadcasts or live recordings because Gould fans will buy them. Similarly for Richter, Furtwängler, Callas and others.

So I think it is not completely unfair to state that e.g. Arrau's reputation has apparently declined somewhat because while his stuff was a core staple of the catalogue in the LP and early CD era and he was honored by some "Arrau collection" shortly after he died, the current state of availability of the Phlilips recordings is poor. (And before the fairly recent boxes of the EMI and other "historical" recordings it was not much better for his earlier stuff.) Now this might be just a neglection by the label (Philips as a label has been gone for several years) and his reputation among the connoisseurs might be still very high.

Gould is a special case because his recordings were divisive from the very beginning. Except for some of his Bach, they were hardly "standards" like a lot by Karajan, Solti, Arrau or Kempff. And for Bach there are now a lot more options, so this might have changed. And as Gould always tended to be a love him or hate him issue, it is hardly surprising that one will find very diverse opinions on the internet.
Still, while my estimation of Sony marketing guys is not very high, I trust that they are smart enough to figure out if the umpteenth Gould box/edition/collection will sell or collect dust in the warehouse.

[prémont]

But back then he served a unique mix of personal excentricity and brilliant interpretations of repertoire not well covered on disc (as the trend in the 1960s was to play Bach on the harpsichord) that was created by himself, not by some marketing department. That these features are still marketable today is also true.

The broad Bach keyboard repertoire was not that well covered in the 1960es, neither on harpsichord nor on piano, but as far as I recall, there were more piano recordings than harpsichord recordings. I think, that one of the reasons why the harpsichord recordings did not displace the piano recordings, was that harpsichordists used ill-sounding revival harpsichords. This gave Gould an unmerited advantage.

[prémont]

What Homer recordings would you recommend?

The Odyssey, easily compatible with the title of this thread (insanity of abundance).

[Jo498]

The broad Bach keyboard repertoire was not that well covered in the 1960es, neither on harpsichord nor on piano, but as far as I recall, there were more piano recordings than harpsichord recordings. I think, that one of the reasons why the harpsichord recordings did not displace the piano recordings, was that harpsichordists used ill-sounding revival harpsichords. This gave Gould an unmerited advantage.

What would have been a merited advantage...?
This still does not explain Gould's status in the 1980s when there were good harpsichord recordings available.

There are many people older than me here who must remember that even in the 1990s distribution could be so important that marketing didn't really matter all that much. Mainly the big labels were easily avaibable locally and Bach on the piano was rather poorly served by them. DG had virtually nothing but a few scattered recitals with Argerich, Pogo or Weissenberg because their main keyboard Bach were harpsichord recordings on Archiv. Very little Bach from the Philips pianists like Brendel and Arrau. Decca had the Schiff recordings but they were very recent (made in the mid-1980s, I think) then. They would have been the main option besides Gould in a middle-sized record store in ca. 1990. And it would very probably have been worse in 1975 (I was too small to buy records then).

The only "official" and widely avaibable Bach by Sviatoslav Richter was the WTC (the suites are all live recordings that were only issued later, AFAIK). Nobody except Gould had recorded such a lot of Bach on a well-distributed major label. So for whatever reasons there was often the choice between harpsichord and Gould and one or two or no (depending on the piece) other recordings. And Gould was highly regarded by many and apparently a somewhat crazy but also pretty cool guy. That's why some people who might not have touched classical music otherwise might buy his recordings. It's to some extent a different audience than the one getting Richter or Horowitz bootlegs.

[Mandryka]

What Homer recordings would you recommend?

[Todd]

There are many people older than me here who must remember that even in the 1990s distribution could be so important that marketing didn't really matter all that much.

I remember the 90s vividly, and I remember ease of acquisition due to efficient distribution and plenty of marketing.  Perhaps things were different in Germany, but even in the Pacific Northwest, getting my hands on recordings was hardly an issue, particularly from major labels.  I also remember plenty of ads in Gramophone when I used to read it, with hyperbolic copy and slick glamour shots, along with posters and the occasional cutout at Tower or Classical Millennium (a local store specializing in classical).  In fact, I saw more physical advertising in the 90s than today, but then, bricks and mortar stores are gone in this area now.

Nobody except Gould had recorded such a lot of Bach on a well-distributed major label.

Recording most or all of Bach on piano is different from recording Bach.  Even today, relatively few pianists have recorded all or substantially all Bach keyboard works on piano.  Also, I suspect (meaning I know) there were more Bach recordings than your memory recalls.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Have you guys seen some of the shots on the Urania label? I would post some but it would likely be removed by the Moderators.

[Todd]

Have you guys seen some of the shots on the Urania label? I would post some but it would likely be removed by the Moderators.

Yes.  I like them.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Yes.  I like them.

THAT makes 2 of us then. I wonder how they sell? I wonder whether they share the same models as Victoria Secret.

[Todd]

I wonder whether they share the same models as Victoria Secret.

Let me do some research and get back to you.

[kishnevi]

The broad Bach keyboard repertoire was not that well covered in the 1960es, neither on harpsichord nor on piano, but as far as I recall, there were more piano recordings than harpsichord recordings. I think, that one of the reasons why the harpsichord recordings did not displace the piano recordings, was that harpsichordists used ill-sounding revival harpsichords. This gave Gould an unmerited advantage.

Even when he used an ill-sounding piano that was meant to sound like a harpsichord?

[Jo498]

Recording most or all of Bach on piano is different from recording Bach.  Even today, relatively few pianists have recorded all or substantially all Bach keyboard works on piano.  Also, I suspect (meaning I know) there were more Bach recordings than your memory recalls.

So what is your claim? That there was plenty of Bach on the piano from the 1960s-early 1990s and people were buying Gould and being fond of Gould because he had been made a mad genius by CBS marketing department? Otherwise they would have mixed their Bach together from recordings by Gulda, Weissenberg and Tureck?

I am not denying that the "mad genius" was used for the umpteenth reissue after Gould had been dead for while. But I claim that there was a time when for Bach on piano Gould was close to default for several reasons, not only marketing, but mainly because there was not much else to chose from, unless one was already a very informed consumer who looked beyond the "standard recommendations".
Maybe my experiences were really different. But the point was not that there was absolutely no other Bach. Rather like e.g. Jochum would have been the typical Bruckner recordings one would get as first recommendations, would be easily available in every store or Böhm's and Marriner's Mozart, so would be Gould's Bach recordings.

[Todd]

So what is your claim?

That Gould wasn't as special as you claim he was, and that there was a lot more Bach available than you state.  I also claim that a major portion of his on-going success, the creation of his "legendary" status, is very heavily dependent on marketing. 

But I claim that there was a time when for Bach on piano Gould was close to default for several reasons...Maybe my experiences were really different.

Our experiences were indeed different.  Gould was never close to the default Bach interpreter, though he was one of the big names.  Neither your experience nor mine represents some objective truth.

What is intriguing is how you ultimately fall back to just his Bach.  Gould's recorded repertoire was much larger, yet the defense of his greatness rests primarily on his interpretations of one composer.  That makes him seem like a cult artist.