[Gllug] Seriously off topic: was Re: Apple Ipod Help

[James Roberts]

On 16/05/11 15:26, Christopher Hunter wrote:
> On Mon, 2011-05-16 at 08:35 +0100, James Roberts wrote:
>
>> (But do you really need the Goldberg by anyone other than Gould? :)
>
> Certainly.  They weren't written to be played on a piano (no matter how
> well!).

True, but only because the piano came later. I would argue that with JS 
Bach we are dealing with the last major figure who composed music with 
the instrumental target being essentially abstract, rather than music 
for a restricted target. As you obviously will know he used and re-used 
material broadly across instrument groups.

> Gould was good, but there are much better, much truer
> recordings.

Perhaps, for a given value of 'truer'. Gould was not always right, I've 
heard some dreadful things, but IMOHO when I listen to Gould playing 
Bach I'm (usually!) listening to the composer directly connected to the 
instrument through a medium (Gould) that colours the result with the 
artist's flavour - but that is nonetheless utterly authentic.

Of course there are other artists, other channels, that add less 
artistic colour, but they, to me, may not be as authentic.

A MIDI player can produce a result without any colour, but it also lacks 
authenticity.

However, YMMV :)

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