Glenn Gould on Beethoven and Tempos

[George K]

Glenn Gould is interviewed by the famous television presenter Humphrey Burton and provides his thoughts on why Beethoven is so central to the Western musical experience. The Interview was originally broadcast on 22th March, 1966.

Link to video

Part 2:

Link to video

[mark]

He really does have an incredible insight and of course the facility to back it up.

[Horace]

Love those Gould interviews. At some point Glenn became scripting them and acting the script out as if it was an extemporaneous interview.

[George K]

@horace said in Glenn Gould on Beethoven and Tempos:

Love those Gould interviews.

If you go to that YouTube page, you'll find a video in which he talks about how he hates audiences. He says he didn't perform for the adulation (unlike other pianists - and he names them (cough Rubenstein cough), but rather for the art.

[Renauda]

Somewhere out there exist Gould’s analysis of the piano compositions of Schoenberg, Webern and Hindemith. Very good.

Can’t say that ever liked his recordings Beethoven or any Romantic composer. His recordings of Hindemith’s sonatas are, IMO, unsurpassed.

[George K]

@renauda said in Glenn Gould on Beethoven and Tempos:

His recordings of Hindemith’s sonatas

I always had a hard time getting into Hindemith's music.

Point me to where to begin.

[Renauda]

@george-k

Same with me, despite having a harmony teacher who was really into Hindemith. He had actually studied composition from a student of Hindemith’s. In any case I guess it was Gould’s TV lecture and his recordings of the sonatas that opened things up.