Beethoven's Piano Sonatas

[Sergeant Rock]

PW, Sarge thanks for your responses.  I do not have a single recording of Gould's and up and until your posts I had no idea he was such a....oh what's the expression I am looking for " Prima Donna".

I prefer "an eccentric character of genius." He thought about things deeply and had reasons for everything he did. That he often went against the grain is to his credit, I think. We need to have the pot stirred occasionally. In the end the man was just like all of us: he loved some things, he loathed others. The difference between him and us is that he had a world stage that allowed him to propagate his love and loathings.

Sarge

[George]

Seconded.

make that a triple cheeseburger. 

[PSmith08]

WHAT THE $£%$!!  He even sabotaged Mozart's sonatas  !!  What is wrong with this guy??

He was one of the few bona fide musical geniuses of his generation. Gould's approach to a piece, far from being a hack noodling on a keyboard, represents a lot of thought and a lot of talent.

PW, Sarge thanks for your responses.  I do not have a single recording of Gould's and up and until your posts I had no idea he was such a....oh what's the expression I am looking for " Prima Donna".  For some reason piano performers tend to be far more eccentric than one would think.

I'll second the advice that you've been given and tell you to go buy Gould's 1955 Goldbergs (though I prefer the 1959 Salzburg set), his Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1, and his performance of Liszt's transcription of Beethoven's 6th. They'll be a revelation.

[Bunny]

I can't quite figure Gould out here.
Sarge

Neither could any of Gould's doctors.  At the very least Gould was severely neurotic: super-hypochondriacal, obsessive (shared Howard Hughes' germ phobia), reclusive, possibly paranoiac, and goodness knows what else.  A small but intriguing bit of his medical history has been made public at the Glenn Gould Archive, but that raises more questions than answers. 

I have to take Gould's music purely on the basis of the way it sounds to me.  If it sounds good, great.  If it sounds wrong, I won't listen again as I find it too disquieting.

[marvinbrown]

He was one of the few bona fide musical geniuses of his generation. Gould's approach to a piece, far from being a hack noodling on a keyboard, represents a lot of thought and a lot of talent.

  OK but why does he have to go against the composers' wishes and instructions?   I want to listen to Ludwig van Beethoven's marvelous piano sonatas NOT Ludwig van Gould's  piano sonatas - surely you can sympathize with me here PSmith08?

  marvin

[Sergeant Rock]

  OK but why does he have to go against the composers' wishes and instructions?   I want to listen to Ludwig van Beethoven's marvelous piano sonatas NOT Ludwig van Gould's  piano sonatas - surely you can sympathize with me here PSmith08?

  marvin

Every Beethoven cycle is different. Which one is truest to Beethoven? They can't all be. Gould takes liberties in some of the sonatas, gross liberties in a few (op.57, 109, 111) but it's always still Beethoven. I don't want to give you the wrong idea, Marvin. Unless you have intimate knowledge of all 32, you might not even notice any deviation in a Gould performance. And some of Gould's performances, like the Pastorale or the Hammerklavier, are among of the best Beethoven you'll ever hear.

Sarge

[marvinbrown]

Every Beethoven cycle is different. Which one is truest to Beethoven? They can't all be. Gould takes liberties in some of the sonatas, gross liberties in a few (op.57, 109, 111) but it's always still Beethoven. I don't want to give you the wrong idea, Marvin. Unless you have intimate knowledge of all 32, you might not even notice any deviation in a Gould performance. And some of Gould's performances, like the Pastorale or the Hammerklavier, are among of the best Beethoven you'll ever hear.

Sarge

  I'll keep an open mind.  I am quite familiar with a lot of Beethoven's piano sonatas.  I used to take piano lessons growing up and have played quite a few excerpts from those sonatas- especially the moonlight and pathetique.  Plus I've listened to the Gulda set so many times so I am quite familiar with all 32.  I think I'll see if I can get my hands on Gould's Appasionate first- I am very curious to hear his interpretation- whether I will subscribe to it or not remains to be seen.

  marvin

[George]

  OK but why does he have to go against the composers' wishes and instructions?   I want to listen to Ludwig van Beethoven's marvelous piano sonatas NOT Ludwig van Gould's  piano sonatas - surely you can sympathize with me here PSmith08?

  marvin

I think the pianist should be allowed a certain amount of interpretive freedom. I believe that back in the day pianists had more freedom than they do today, actually. Frankly, I think that is a good thing, for if they play too close to what is written, the performances begin to sound the same. I have over a dozen sets of these sonatas, but only because they all interpret these works differently. Gould taking that a step or two further is OK with me. I may not enjoy all of it, but I think it's important to allow the pianist to have the freedom to express his interpretation.

[PSmith08]

  OK but why does he have to go against the composers' wishes and instructions?   I want to listen to Ludwig van Beethoven's marvelous piano sonatas NOT Ludwig van Gould's  piano sonatas - surely you can sympathize with me here PSmith08?

  marvin

I would echo the Sergeant and George, but say this - if the performer is not allowed some degree of artistic freedom, then there is really no sense in performance. "[The] composers' wishes and instructions" will never be clearer than in the score, and, if you can read music, then you should stick to the score. Every performer, save some sort of computer program (and they are getting pretty good, if you want to sit and key in the score information), is going to interpret. Gould probably took more liberties than most, but - unlike many performers - his liberties always had a rationale. (The Sergeant is correct, though, many of his interpretative choices are hard to spot unless you've got a score in front of you and are very familiar with performance practice, others are fairly obvious.) Some of those liberties are positively brilliant and shed new light on old warhorses, and some are clearly the product of a very smart and very eccentric fellow. That's the danger of interpretation. What makes Gould so great, though, is his ability to converse with the score and present his understanding clearly and precisely. The man was an artist.

The irony of that admittedly fabulous (though I end up listening to Pollini often as not) Hammerklavier is that Gould really didn't care for the piece.

[Bunny]

  OK but why does he have to go against the composers' wishes and instructions?   I want to listen to Ludwig van Beethoven's marvelous piano sonatas NOT Ludwig van Gould's  piano sonatas - surely you can sympathize with me here PSmith08?

  marvin

I would echo the Sergeant and George, but say this - if the performer is not allowed some degree of artistic freedom, then there is really no sense in performance. "[The] composers' wishes and instructions" will never be clearer than in the score, and, if you can read music, then you should stick to the score. Every performer, save some sort of computer program (and they are getting pretty good, if you want to sit and key in the score information), is going to interpret. Gould probably took more liberties than most, but - unlike many performers - his liberties always had a rationale. (The Sergeant is correct, though, many of his interpretative choices are hard to spot unless you've got a score in front of you and are very familiar with performance practice, others are fairly obvious.) Some of those liberties are positively brilliant and shed new light on old warhorses, and some are clearly the product of a very smart and very eccentric fellow. That's the danger of interpretation. What makes Gould so great, though, is his ability to converse with the score and present his understanding clearly and precisely. The man was an artist.

The irony of that admittedly fabulous (though I end up listening to Pollini often as not) Hammerklavier is that Gould really didn't care for the piece.

I have to agree: the musician as an artist must have absolute freedom to interpret as he or she wishes.  Sometimes the results are catastrophic; only think of Pogorelich's recent recitals!  However, sometimes the eccentric interpretation benefits the music by revealing things that are more hidden by conventional performance.  Composers' intentions are only guideposts in an ocean of sounds.  In the end, it's the artist's responsibility to make sense of the music and create the performance.  We are only listening, and either enjoying the performance or relegating it to the back shelf. 

Marvin, no one is coercing you to buy or listen to Gould.  If you think from what you have read here that he is not to your taste, then pass him by.  It's a big world and it's crowded with Beethoven recordings. There is more than enough to satisfy everyone's taste, and there are always new "greatest" recordings waiting to be made. 

[op.110]

I haven't been on the forums for a few days now; thanks for all your suggestions. I think I'll go with either Gilels or Kempff.

[George]

I haven't been on the forums for a few days now; thanks for all your suggestions. I think I'll go with either Gilels or Kempff.

The Gilels can be easily sampled on itunes, but the Kempff is not. Suffice to say that if you want a smaller scaled Beethoven, Kempff is your man. Personally, I think Gilels is better suited to these works as a whole, even if he did miss a few sonatas. He should be cheaper as well.

[Wanderer]

http://www.amazon.de/Die-Klaviersonaten-Paul-Badura-Skoda/dp/B0000669UV/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1212835442&sr=1-1

How about this one, any opinions?

[Todd]

How about this one, any opinions?

Overall a quite enjoyable cycle.  It's on the smaller-scaled, more personal side, and some of PBS' playing is occasionally a bit gruff, but that's quite fine.  His Op 57, 81a, and 106 are highlights for me.

[marvinbrown]

I haven't been on the forums for a few days now; thanks for all your suggestions. I think I'll go with either Gilels or Kempff.

  I am going to get trampled on by the rest of the GMG members for posting this but isn't the Gilels set incomplete?

  marvin

[Todd]

...isn't the Gilels set incomplete?

Alas, yes.  But what's there is more than worth hearing. 

[George]

Alas, yes.  But what's there is more than worth hearing. 

Are there live performances available that can fill in the gaps?

[George]

  I am going to get trampled on by the rest of the GMG members for posting this but isn't the Gilels set incomplete?

  marvin

He only misses 4 (1, 9, 22 and 32) and includes the two Electoral Sonatas - WoO 47.

[Todd]

Are there live performances available that can fill in the gaps?

I haven't looked into Gilels' discography much yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are.  (Once I'm finished with complete or near-complete cycles, I'm going to delve more deeply into individual recordings, hopefully sometime next year.)

[George]

I haven't looked into Gilels' discography much yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are.  (Once I'm finished with complete or near-complete cycles, I'm going to delve more deeply into individual recordings, hopefully sometime next year.)

Yeah, I consulted a few discographies and apparently he never recorded those 4 sonatas.