Starter Packs

Complete your collection with these curated titles, grouped at a special discount.

Shop Now
Sony Masterworks

Glenn Gould Edition - Chopin, Mendelssohn, Scriabin, Et Al

$24.99

Details

Artist
Chopin, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Gould
Format
CD
Label
Sony Masterworks
Released
Apr 30, 2012
Catalog #
SONY 52622
UPC
074645262222

About

Iconoclastic takes on Romantic masterpieces that are at times infuriating, other times mesmerizing, often both.

Recordings taken from CBC television transmissions from CBC Studios, Toronto on December 9th, 1970 and September lst-4th, 1967.

While most of us turn gratefully to music we cherish and admire, Glenn Gould often performed and even recorded music he despised. And reading his accompanying comments - an infuriating mix of brilliance and jargon, insight and psycho-babble - the omens are not good. "Whenever Chopin tackled large-scale forms and tried to write pieces demanding a high degree of organization he almost invariably came to grief." To illustrate his point Gould chooses the Third Sonata, anaesthetizes it and after "freezing up the heat of life" applies his surgeon's scalpel. Chopin's occasional flutter with a form of romantic polyphony (the start of the development of the first movement) momentarily engages his sympathy, but elsewhere the essentially vocal conception of keyboard writing and the ecstatic entwining of melody and counter-melody are clearly viewed as frivolous. The overall result is so literal and Teutonic that it left this listener, at least, stranded, gasping for air and longing to break Gould's stranglehold. His didacticism in the finale's exultant bravura is notably perverse and rarely have I heard a performance by a great pianist that more obviously declares his limitations.

Gould's Mendelssohn is scarcely less cramped (though he responds to the hymnal pieties of the Song without Words. op. 30 No. 3 with surprising warmth) but his Scriabin is, arguably, as mesmeric as it is strange. All listeners nurtured on an ultraromantic Russian tradition will jettison Gould's alternative and spring more than a few questions. Why so ponderous in the powerfully striding drammatico rhythm of the Third Sonata's opening? Since when is a languorous Andantino the same as Presto con allegrezza in the Fifth Sonata? From anyone else such things would be unacceptable. But from Gould you pause to reconvene, to reconsider and note that there is nothing random or inchoate about his conclusions. Both these performances, together with some wintry Prokofiev, hold a powerful and compelling fascination.

The final record contains a damp squib rather than a jeu d'esprit (the Strauss Burleske was another work that gave Gould heartache rather than joy) and a heavily personalized, monochrome Beethoven Emperor Concerto. Here, once again, are rhythms in the opening flourishes articulated like so much phonetic spelling and a deliberately poker-faced, uninflected response to the Adagio's espressivo. Conductor and orchestra fight to match their soloist's aggression but end sounding tubthumping and militaristic. Gould was, incidentally, a last-minute replacement in the Beethoven for the ever-indisposed Michelangeli, a situation that provoked the impish riposte from Gould, "My God, just think that the Number One pianist is going to substitute for Number Two". All these discs contain either previously unreleased material or first authorized issues.

-- Gramophone [4/1996]

Tracklist 24 tracks

  1. Disc 1
  2. 1 I. Allegro maestoso 10:01
    Track
    1
    Title
    I. Allegro maestoso
    Duration
    10:01
    Composer
    Frédéric Chopin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  3. 2 II. Scherzo: Molto vivace 02:18
    Track
    2
    Title
    II. Scherzo: Molto vivace
    Duration
    02:18
    Composer
    Frédéric Chopin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  4. 3 III. Largo 08:34
    Track
    3
    Title
    III. Largo
    Duration
    08:34
    Composer
    Frédéric Chopin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  5. 4 IV. Finale: Presto, non tanto 04:58
    Track
    4
    Title
    IV. Finale: Presto, non tanto
    Duration
    04:58
    Composer
    Frédéric Chopin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  6. 5 No. 1 in E Major, Op. 19b, No. 1, MWV U86 02:53
    Track
    5
    Title
    No. 1 in E Major, Op. 19b, No. 1, MWV U86
    Duration
    02:53
    Composer
    Felix Mendelssohn
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  7. 6 No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 19b, No. 2, MWV U80 01:42
    Track
    6
    Title
    No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 19b, No. 2, MWV U80
    Duration
    01:42
    Composer
    Felix Mendelssohn
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  8. 7 No. 38 in A Minor, Op. 85, No. 2, MWV U101 00:56
    Track
    7
    Title
    No. 38 in A Minor, Op. 85, No. 2, MWV U101
    Duration
    00:56
    Composer
    Felix Mendelssohn
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  9. 8 No. 41 in A Major, Op. 85, No. 5, MWV U191 01:49
    Track
    8
    Title
    No. 41 in A Major, Op. 85, No. 5, MWV U191
    Duration
    01:49
    Composer
    Felix Mendelssohn
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  10. 9 Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words), Book 2, Op. 30: No. 9 in E Major, Op. 30, No. 3, MWV U104 02:56
    Track
    9
    Title
    Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words), Book 2, Op. 30: No. 9 in E Major, Op. 30, No. 3, MWV U104
    Duration
    02:56
    Composer
    Felix Mendelssohn
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  11. 10 4 Preludes, Op. 33: No. 3 in C Major 00:48
    Track
    10
    Title
    4 Preludes, Op. 33: No. 3 in C Major
    Duration
    00:48
    Composer
    Alexander Scriabin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  12. 11 3 Pieces, Op. 45: No. 3. Prelude 01:23
    Track
    11
    Title
    3 Pieces, Op. 45: No. 3. Prelude
    Duration
    01:23
    Composer
    Alexander Scriabin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  13. 12 3 Pieces, Op. 49: No. 2. Prelude in F Major 01:12
    Track
    12
    Title
    3 Pieces, Op. 49: No. 2. Prelude in F Major
    Duration
    01:12
    Composer
    Alexander Scriabin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  14. 13 Feuillet d'album (Album Leaf), Op. 58 01:33
    Track
    13
    Title
    Feuillet d'album (Album Leaf), Op. 58
    Duration
    01:33
    Composer
    Alexander Scriabin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  15. 14 Visions fugitives, Op. 22: II. Andante 02:52
    Track
    14
    Title
    Visions fugitives, Op. 22: II. Andante
    Duration
    02:52
    Composer
    Sergei Prokofiev
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  16. Disc 2
  17. 1 I. Drammatico 08:03
    Track
    1
    Title
    I. Drammatico
    Duration
    08:03
    Composer
    Alexander Scriabin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  18. 2 II. Allegretto 02:44
    Track
    2
    Title
    II. Allegretto
    Duration
    02:44
    Composer
    Alexander Scriabin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  19. 3 III. Andante 05:13
    Track
    3
    Title
    III. Andante
    Duration
    05:13
    Composer
    Alexander Scriabin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  20. 4 IV. Presto con fuoco 07:12
    Track
    4
    Title
    IV. Presto con fuoco
    Duration
    07:12
    Composer
    Alexander Scriabin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  21. 5 Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 53 13:10
    Track
    5
    Title
    Piano Sonata No. 5, Op. 53
    Duration
    13:10
    Composer
    Alexander Scriabin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  22. 6 I. Allegro inquieto - Poco meno - Andantino 08:12
    Track
    6
    Title
    I. Allegro inquieto - Poco meno - Andantino
    Duration
    08:12
    Composer
    Sergei Prokofiev
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  23. 7 II. Andante caloroso 07:35
    Track
    7
    Title
    II. Andante caloroso
    Duration
    07:35
    Composer
    Sergei Prokofiev
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  24. 8 III. Precipitato 03:20
    Track
    8
    Title
    III. Precipitato
    Duration
    03:20
    Composer
    Sergei Prokofiev
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  25. 9 No. 1. Desir 01:58
    Track
    9
    Title
    No. 1. Desir
    Duration
    01:58
    Composer
    Alexander Scriabin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould
  26. 10 No. 2. Caresse dansee 02:32
    Track
    10
    Title
    No. 2. Caresse dansee
    Duration
    02:32
    Composer
    Alexander Scriabin
    Performer
    Glenn Gould