Glenn Gould’s Every Detail. But Why?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/05/arts/music/glenn-gould-goldberg-variations.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&action=click&contentCollection=arts&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=13&pgtype=sectionfront

The first Beethoven sonata I learned as a young pianist was the dramatic “Pathétique.” When I started working on it, I tried to copy the way the great Rudolf Serkin played it on a recording I loved. There is a place for learning by emulating masters, but it can easily become inhibiting. Fairly early on, aspiring musicians must develop their own voices.

So when a score that meticulously transcribes every detail of Glenn Gould’s famed 1981 recording of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations was published recently, while I was impressed with the painstaking effort involved, I questioned what it was for.

What’s its purpose? For whom is it intended? From what we know of Gould, he would have been baffled, even horrified, at the idea that a student learning the “Goldberg” Variations would precisely mimic his performance. He was too restless a thinker to consider any recording of his at all definitive. And imitating a pianist as idiosyncratic as Gould may not be a good idea for impressionable young musicians.

Gould’s 1981 version, issued just days before his death from a stroke at 50 in October 1982, electrified the classical music world nearly as much as his classic 1955 recording had. That first version turned what had been considered a harpsichord piece for Bach specialists and erudite audiences into an unlikely hit that made the gangly, 22-year-old Canadian a sensation with the new generation. The fascination remains, judging from a new hip-hop remix project of Gould recordings by a young music producer.

In 1955, his tempos, overall, were breathless, sometimes fanatically fast. Yet the playing sounds eerily controlled. Ignoring all the score’s repeats, Gould brought the “Goldbergs” in at just over 38 minutes. (A performance with the repeats observed and more conventional tempos can last twice as long.)people to listen to and even choose from.”

Indeed, in “The Prospects of Recording,” a 1966 article, Gould explains his unorthodox attitude about the process. He recounts one session in which he recorded eight takes of Bach’s complex Fugue in A minor from the first book of the “Well-Tempered Clavier.” Two of them, number six and eight, were complete takes that needed no editing and were deemed satisfactory. But listening some weeks later, he and the producer agreed that take six was somewhat pompous and take eight rather jubilant and skittish. They decided to combine parts of each in the final edit. Somehow, the juxtaposition of approaches and styles resulted in a dynamic synthesis. Go figure.

Later in that article, Gould spins out his fantasy for recordings of the future, when a listener would be granted tape-edit options. He points to the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. If you like Bruno Walter’s recording of the exposition section, but prefer Otto Klemperer’s way with the development, which has a different tempo, by using pitch-speed technology (which allows a tempo to be adjusted while keeping pitch accurate), you could create an ideal personal amalgam. Gould argues: Why not?

Just as I was considering the questions raised by this new transcription, I learned of a radically different project involving Gould’s recordings. With the blessings of the Gould estate, Billy Wild, a young music producer based in Toronto, has been engaged in a project to remix Gould’s output and rebrand him for a new generation. Using excerpts from various albums and film clips of him playing, mixed together with pop riffs, Mr. Wild has created modern hip-hop tracks from the Gould catalog.

Classical purists may be affronted. I find the videos charming and clever, a brash jumble of sound and imagery. My hunch is that Gould would have loved them.