The incomparable Glenn Gould will be honored with a lifetime achievement award this Sunday at the Grammys. His friend and music critic, Tim Page, will be accepting the award. Unfortunately, the segment won't be on TV...

I'm curious to know which Gould recordings have made the greatest impression on you over the years.

My pick: WTC I&II

About time! Um...personally it'd have to be ...ooo, tricky...Bach Concerto in D minor is an obvious pick, as would be anything from the Canadian Music in the 20th Century album (love the Morawetz!), but...I'm going to have to go with Tempest III as it was the first piece I heard him play and, um, up until that day, I'd never before cared enough to find out the artist of a particular recording.

+1

And my second-place pick might surprise many:
Beethoven Theme and Variations in F major

Goldberg Variations - the 1981 recording
Brahms Intermezzi (surprisingly good. That being said, I'm not a fan of his recordings of the Ballades and Rhapsodies)
Richard Strauss piano sonata and op. 3 piano pieces

1. Goldberg variations, 1955

2. All the rest of Bach, the Hindemith sonatas, and even an occasional Mozart sonata movement.

-J

I was going to say the same. Back in university days I saw him play these variations in a televised performance. It was my first hearing of the piece and it inspired me to learn it

Hi all, how are you?

I find it kind of amusing that this post was started by someone with the moniker "vlhorowitz." Didn't they hate each other?

As for the ones which have made the greatest impression on me: The Goldbergs (obviously, and both recordings), the Bach Keyboard Concerti, English Suites, Partitas, and the Haydn sonatas.

This thread, yes, but I first posted the announcement of the award one month ago in this thread :

Glenn Gould at 2013 Grammy Awards

Regards,

Shouldn't this be a deathtime achievement award? How can they give a lifetime achievement award to someone who hasn't been on the concert stage or in the recording studio for over 30 years?

Retroactive recognition?

I can't think of any other examples of posthumous lifetime achievement awards at the moment, but I would bet that there are many, in various fields of interest.

I don't know if "better late than never" applies or matters, but I do think it is great to see Gould getting (even more) recognition.

I'm thinking his work in the media away from the piano weighed heavily here.

The Goldbergs (both 1955 & 1981)

Most especially:
French Suites
English Suites
Partitas


Both Goldbergs are also fabulous, as are the Beethoven Variations in F (no one does them better, right MarkC?).

The Salzburg Goldbergs, all the recordings from Moscow, the Brahms, Bizet, his transcriptions of Wagner, any note he played from the Art of Fugue aside from the organ version, the Variations in the Italian Style, his recording of Bach's transc. of the Marcello Oboe Concerto, all Sweelinck, Gibbons, Byrd etc. and whenever he touched the music of the 2nd Wien school it came to life.

I wouldn't know, because the only other one I've heard do it is me, and BTW his is better.

I've never heard it in person (BTW I avoid saying "live" because on paper, it's ambiguous) nor by anyone else on a recording. So, all I know is his version, and the score -- and oddly enough they seem to correlate pretty well.
It does seem to be a wonderful performance. Assuming it really isn't odd in any way (unlike much of his other Beethoven), maybe that's because it's not a commonly familiar piece. He didn't need to do it "differently" in order for it to be different, because just playing it at all was different.


Nicely said, simple though it seems -- and really that's exactly the key thing that I get from Gould, in any repertoire (at his best), making things come to life as hardly anyone else does or did. Of course "come to life" is subjective and might mean different things for us, but here's my very short list of people who did it comparably, in their own ways:

Horowitz
Rubinstein
Josef Hofmann
.....and a less known favorite of mine, who is still living and still as marvelous as ever:
Eric Heidsieck

WTC I & II for me too.