Music : Bach: Two- and Three-Part Inventions (The Glenn Gould Edition)

Rating: - Magnificent
I somehow seem to have caught a certain negativity of feeling towards Gould. People told me he was a showman, not really a musician, too egotistical to let the music really shine through. So it was with trepidation that I listened to this recording for the first time (the first time I had heard Gould.

All of my other recordings of Bach are by women, namely Roslyn Tureck and Martha Argerich. I somehow believed that only a woman could really have the patience to devote their time to such unpretentious music (well, unpretentious compared to someone like Prokofiev, which Argerich plays so I don't know what I was thinking!) And yet somehow my Roslyn Tureck recordings never seemed to hit the spot.

Now I have heard Gould, and I shall never look back!! What masterful playing, what love he has for the music. And it IS the music that shines through, never showmanship or selfishness. Compared to Gould I believe that Tureck is more egotistical than Gould ever was. He is so sensitive! He tempos so spritely, his understanding of the music so deep. And its not just for Bach that Gould obviously has a great love, its for the piano as an instrument as well. He plays completely pianistically, never like he's playing a harpsichord, despite the staccato attacks, which by the way never get in the way. And I myself think that Bach would approve.

No, this is my Bach player of choice, and I love the order that he plays the pieces, they really sound like an organic whole. Gould plays with so much character and personality; more interesting than Schiff, more clear than Lipatti, more realistic than Argerich, I love this recording.

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Rating: - incredible rendering of 30 small masterpieces
I don't think it took Gould long to record these pieces. Indeed, he didn't talk a great deal about them in all his writings. There is even a flaw in the piano mid-range giving a slight double-hit sound with the hammers (detailed in the CD's sleeve). Nevertheless, i found this recording to be incredibly moving. In fact, the slight flaw even adds to the recording's character. There is never a hint that these are simply technical workouts for the student. Bach had to much genius to write anything trite or without beauty. Each piece is given its own distinct character and mood, is always fresh and never overworked. The pieces are given an almost ethereal quality under Gould's touch, especially the 5th Sinfonia in Eb, the 9th inventio in F minor and there is the wonderfully rampant and fiery 15th sinfonia in B minor. We are given a quite wonderful sense of melancholy in the 2nd sinfonia in C minor, and joyousness in the 1st sinfonia in C. Gould's style is definitely unconventional in almost every sense, the radical selection of tempi, detached phrases. It is a style that it is impossible to imitate (i've tried!). However, the overall impact of every one of these little pieces is quite extraordinary.