MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

 

BUY NOW 

AmazonUK  

Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Piano Concerto No.1 in D minor Op.15 (1854-58) [53.21]
Leonard Bernstein’s pre-concert comments [4.12]
Excerpt of New York Philharmonic Intermission Radio Interview with Glenn Gould [3.45]
Glenn Gould (piano)
New York Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein
rec. live, Carnegie Hall, 6 April 1962
SONY CLASSICAL 82876 787532 [61.23]
Error processing SSI file


This infamous Gould-Bernstein first appeared in a legitimate form, so far as I recall, in the late ’nineties on Sony Classical SK60675 though doubtless many will have heard it through other channels. It appears now in the uniform livery of the Great Performances series, a nomenclature that’s clearly stretching things to breaking point in this particular case.
 
The disc faithfully reproduces Bernstein’s opening announcement, a witty and clever disclaimer and as an appendix we have a snippet of a Gould radio interview. Gould’s humour was generally of the adolescent variety but his seriousness was much more appealing and he doesn’t disgrace himself. The booklet notes reprint excerpts from the earlier Sony release’s liner notes – Schuyler Chapin and Tim Page set the scene. One needn’t delve into the gladiatorial aspects too much or the Duel at Dawn prose.
 
As a performance it represents Gould’s established desire to emphasise continuity over contrast, to recast dynamics, to make organic “connections” between motifs and movements, to sculpt in Gould’s phrase “a giant fresco.” It would perhaps have made more sense to do this – if it was necessary to do it at all – with a work with which he was more familiar. He’s first played the Brahms in the 1959-60 season but not often and this “contemplation-not-competition” approach, saliently concentrating on the contrapuntal and inner voicings, smacks more than a little of artifice. With Gould it was not really a question of slow tempi per se but of rhythmic enervation and a fatal lack of momentum.
 
As far as mere timings go the performance is not desperately slower than some we’ve become accustomed to. Zimerman’s recording with – of all people – Bernstein was in fact very slightly slower still. The same pianist’s recent recording with Rattle was similarly leisurely. What distinguished them, at least in pianistic terms, was a sense of internal contrast and a sense of forward momentum, however skewed one might believe it to be; the question of tonal resources is something better addressed elsewhere.
 
As for the solo playing Gould’s trills are ponderous, his conception, as intended, static and withdrawn. Some left hand accents mince along and he is inclined to force through the tone; at times the playing is plain nasty. The devitalised nature of this playing, Bernstein faithfully following, sounds – unintended surely – self-mocking not least in some of the treble runs of the first movement. Lassitude squats over the slow movement, a sort of rocking trivia, a directionless, badly voiced nothingness. The finale is galumphing, Gould singing away as ever. Articulation is variable – clear lines but so deadened that one can’t wait for the end. As a lecture on the strict application of a common pulse it takes some beating.
 
The live recording – they’d actually played the concerto the day before with a similar announcement-disavowal from Bernstein – is prey to plentiful coughs, stamps and general noises off. If you’ve yet to encounter Gould’s “baroque-ish” Brahms, refashioned dynamics and straight-line implacability, then here’s your chance. I’ll be keeping it on the shelves – but only for Bernstein’s gorgeous introductory talk.
 
Jonathan Woolf
 

BUY NOW 

AmazonUK  

 


Return to Index

Error processing SSI file