[f_minor] er... F# minor (WTC I)

[Peter Glenister]

TT Dali

Glenn Gould did make other "little" changes in the playing of Bach's music. Here are two.

1. In "Bach's Keyboard partitas, a conversation with Glenn Gould" published in GlenGould, a publication of the Glenn Gould Foundation, volume 4, number 2, fall 1998, page 52, Glenn relates to David Johnson that the B-flat major partita, which "contains a Minuet ... I play it as a straight minuet; relative to others , the tempo is quite slow; the relation of Minuet I and Minuet II is a very strict one - Minuet II is of a slightly different poise and it also has a passage [the repeat of mm. 1-8] where I jump up an octave to give the impression of four-foot registration".
This conversation was first issued as notes to the 2-disc release of the complete partitas in 1963.

2. Bruno Monsaingeon, in his 2006 video production "Hereafter", describes "an episode" during their earlier 1980 video collaboration, "An art of the fugue" when Glenn was about to record Contrapunctus XIV.
Beginninng at 1:37:00, he states (1:38:36) "While playing it to me ... [Glenn said] 'He [Bach] made a mistake. Had he lived he would have corrected that mistake - a contrapuntal mistake'". Unfortunately the specifics of the "mistake" are not elucidated but one assumes that whatever Glenn perceived it to be, he "corrected" in his performance.

Peter


________________________________
From: f_minor <f_minor-bounces+peter.glenister=msvu.ca at freefriends.org> on behalf of ttdali at yahoo.com <ttdali at yahoo.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 2, 2022 7:57 PM
To: Discussion of the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. <f_minor at freefriends.org>
Subject: [f_minor] er... F# minor (WTC I)

Thanks for the photos.

Can we start talking about Glenn again, like, starting over? I searched out this mailing list in the last year, knowing it existed but never having been subscribed. There is nowhere else for such discussions, that I know of. I don't use Facebook.

Here's a discussion topic. Recently I noticed that the F# minor fugue of WTC I ends with a Picardy third when played by others. This turns out to be "correct", at least according to a cursory review. But Glenn ends it in the minor, which to me sounds much better given the severity of what came before. It is one of my favorite fugues.

Has anyone else noticed this? I am not particularly educated in theory or practice. Did Glenn make many other "little" changes like this? How big a sin is this from a purist's point of view?

Richter: https://youtu.be/RjAQLU23keI?t=289
Schiff: https://youtu.be/FPTwkPQ6ecc?t=206
Gould: https://youtu.be/t2TKz1YR1fc?t=213



On Friday, July 1, 2022 at 06:11:21 p.m. MDT, maryellen jensen <maryellenjensen28 at hotmail.com> wrote:


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