This is a phenomenon I've given a lot of thought to: the apparent body language of pianists. I'm a low-competence amateur who overreaches in very difficult repertoire, and increasingly I find that the body language I used to interpret as complete engrossment or rapture/ecstasy (the closed eyes and open mouth as the torso sways or jerks around) in the pianist is very different from how it looks. It's that even in very poor or disliked or mediocre music, the body will go along with it as if it's great music because the way a pianist plays is the way a pianist plays, and it's not about the quality of the music. If you're a musician on Gould's level (not that I would pretend to know), the body reacts to and processes even hackneyed gestures, scales, runs, sequences etc. based on involuntary physiological responses. There really isn't a contradiction, though there appears to be. Well, this how it all seems to me at any rate.
He had the right to his own opinions….there’s no need to be rude about his genius. The only people who can disagree are those at his level. Are any of you there? Didn’t think so.
He’s right. And the corporate analogy is exactly apt. On the other hand, Glenn didn’t have either a family to feed or a tone-deaf boss demanding he produce a concerto by a sudden deadline. Beethoven, a more sympathetic critic, distinguished between Mozart’s “real” works and the to-deadline “corporate” ones when, on a student’s piano, he singled out the A Major string quartet that we know today as KV 464 and said: “There is a piece! There is where Mozart said to the world, “See what I could do for you if I had had the time!””
It's brilliant. After hearing this , Mozart's piano music sounded like inter- office memos ! Mozart, though always delightful, was at his best when he forgot his own " recipe " and the usual formula was abandoned, disguised, or used in a brand new way. The very early concerti for example. There is a form, but it's not yet the 1 from column A, 2 from B, repeat, cadence, column C. Haydn's formula perhaps. Or #23. All the usual stuff, but used in a different way. I've never cared for the sonatas. They sound like element fed into a computer and printed out. Luckily for the world, when Mozart was not inspired, he composed "normal" everyday beautiful music. It's all great, with some being divinely great. I heard Clifford Curzon say Mozart had the ability to elevate his mood , whatever the circumstance. I find 1/2 hour a day eliminated the need for anti depressant medication, if you make the time. Great way to start the day
@@jefolson6989 Your quoting Sir Clifford reminds me of something relevant that Artur Schnabel said-this time in relation to Schubert, “Music is interesting in inverse proportion to how it is used to deal with the problems of musicians. Schubert’s is interesting because it is better than it can possibly be played.”
Beethoven also wrote these crowd pleasing pieces under time constraints, some of which GG also critizises. It seems he should have put these works into context given the circumstances under which they were written.
@@alhfgsp It seems unfair that a stone-deaf man who is capable of writing Op. 131 can be criticized two hundred years later by a pianist with ten fingers, but in a sense it’s an acknowledgement of Beethoven’s continued relevance, which is very important now. He’s been called a rapist, citing no historical evidence, by musical politicians at places like Harvard University and Bowdoin College, which is part of a larger concerted effort now to “debunk Beethoven,” along with most other canonic composers, that Glenn could never have anticipated. Beethoven has an unassailable place in the history of ideas-and it’s to be hoped that Glenn’s voice will, over much more time, prove a valuable addition to that history.
@@mylesjordan9970 This "debunking Beethoven" movement is in the same vein as discarding Tchaikovsky over Russian actions in the Ukraine conflict. Both have the sentiment of making people guilty by association, in both cases extremely loosely. Beethoven was anti-war and believed in individual liberty. He spent his life making commission off of writing music, not slave labor, but because he was a white man during that time a few people consider him no different from imperialistic white men, whom beethoven despised. Tchaikovsky was at odds with the Russian government being a known homosexual, but because he was technically born in Russia a few consider him just as bad as the Russian government. I may be a progressive leftist like many in the classical music community but there are people amoung us that should be pensive to call themselves leftists at all for perpetuating lies about composers of the past and generalizing based on race or nationality.
I find this commentary on Mozart interesting because my late husband felt the same way about many of Mozart's compositions. We never got around to discussing this in detail. Somehow, Glenn is explaing it to me now.
With Glenn Gould, you have to take some and leave some. Of course, if you don't put your heart into it, the music becomes uninteresting. A cascade of notes deprived of its essence.
Do consider that a composer no less than Beethoven held this Mozart C minor piano concerto in such very high regard that his own concerto in the same key is clearly influenced by it. Notably, referring to the Mozart C minor concerto's third movement changing to 6/8 time in the final pages, Beethoven admiringly commented the following to his friend Ferdinand Ries: "Oh, my dear Ries, we would never get such an idea."
I think Gould is referring to the many composition which are delightful, but dashed off using the Mozart formula. What goes up, then comes down. Very business like. The greatest of Mozarts pieces were inspired and usually not a product of his " 9-5 job". The Requiem of course, some of the symphonies, a handful of the piano concerti and sonatas. A fairly small percentage of his total output. His "everyday beautiful " compositions have the corporate , cookie cutter feel because they were. The average person at the time, long before recordings that could be studied and compared, wouldn't have noticed recycled material or patterns . They heard them once. Mozart probably could have been less creative and gotten away with it. Why knock yourself out being creative when the music is for background at the Dukes dinner party? Being Mozart, he couldn't help being brilliant, even when it was corporate and from the assembly line
He’s not wrong, but not right either. As many people would say, Mozart never meant to be so much of an inventor as say Beethoven or Debussy, and the strength of his music lies in its elegance, precision and coherence. He was in the business perfecting classical music, nothing more, nothing less. And if you find it boring, that’s just your musical taste. Moreover, what he speaks of as clichés could as well be regarded as certain ‘syntaxes’ in music that can work extremely well when applied in a particular manor. Mozart was an absolute king at this.
Yeah, I know he did all his piano sonatas, piano fantasies in d minor and c minor, concerto No 24, and prelude and fugue in c. And I love his take on each of them
The importance of having a perpetually critical appreciation - but also a reverent respect towards things as they are - is inevitably felt with hindsight and maturity; for one is either inauthentic or myopic without the other.
Philip Gershkovich (the book is “About music”): “….Consequently, the picture of the phrase at this level gives us the opportunity to correctly understand SCHOENBERG’s words that Mozart is more COMPLICATED than Beethoven…. ….Mozart's cliche is a brick. If I have the opportunity, I will take any one of Mozart's cliches, and one that looks like a "trick", and show how it, this cliche, without changing, changes its function every time in a different work. And Mozart was creative precisely in that he gave completely new functions to the same cliches every time. And if we perceive Mozart's cliches without getting to his function, which is always different, new, then, of course, Mozart's genius, which is perceived even by the simple gaze of the most mediocre people, those people who are unable to know what a function is, cannot but be absurd…” That’s very interesting 🤔 Glenn didn’t know Mozart well??? Is he pretending?
I don't think I ever heard anyone describe a work by Mozart as an "inter-office" memo before. I can see the value in distinguishing Mozart's master works from ones that were less inspired, rather than just assuming everything is just as good. Still, the worst piece by Mozart is better than most of the music to exist in the world anyway.
Bach only abused sequences in his early works, like the first toccatas. In middle and late Bach sequences are embellished, inflected, transformed, etc.
@@garrysmodsketches Yes, Bach' sequences have a great work of counterpoint and voice leading, they are not trivial, never. We can't say the same about Mozart's sequences.
When you can hear and perfectly phrase multiple melodic lines at once with pristine accuracy, everything else must sound like garbage. I can't even imagine how Gould would recoil hearing modern pop music.
He LOVED pop music. Petula Clark, Twiggy, Barbara Streisand ( if that could be called "pop'.. it's what he listened to while driving around in his land yacht. ( an Oldsmobile Toronado, or something like that. )
@@jefolson6989 Yeah...but modern pop? All of artists that you listed are of actual quality and substance (and some classical training as well), but many modern performers don't have any of that. Those that do are certainly worth listening to, but if Gould was literally complaining that some Bach and Mozart works were drab, contrite, predictible, etc, a 4 or 8 par line that is manufactured and performed by people that heavily rely on auto-tune and simply look the part and know how to press a spacebar, which is then vomited up for mass consumption would most likely not be well received by a man that thought some Mozart or (J.S.) Bachs works were uninspired or lazy. 😂 You are, like Gould, entitled to your opinion, of course.
If it wasn't for Bach, Mozart (Haydn and Beethoven) wouldn't be worth listening to! They had access to his works and learned a great deal. Other composers didn't. Schubert couldn't Google Bach either. Besides that Gould is absolutely right. While Mozart knew Bach the fashion du jour was to be as vain as possible! This at the expense of great music
@@valtrberg901 yes, and I would agree with that, I'm not the biggest fan of mozart myself, but isn't it kind of known that Mozarts music isnt overly complex? Complexity wasnt what they were aiming for in the viennese school.
@@tarokan_nor He simply doesn't enjoy Mozart's music and prattles on about it in a way that superficially sounds profound, but is essentially blather. "Cliches, self parody" lol Seriously, every composer has patterns that they repeat over and over again and Gould's criticisms against Mozart could easily be levied against every other composer, especially, and sonewhat ironically considering the critic, Bach!
@@fabiomangone9789 I just re watched it. Gould's questions are impossible and Stokie is right on the edge of dementia. They barely touch on music, but interesting to see them interact. 2 crazy geniuses....
@@EntelSidious_gamzeylmz There is nothing to analyze, Mozart is one of the most amazing musics ever written. Gould was a total idiot on this matter, even the greatest have their weird aspects.
@@EntelSidious_gamzeylmz Just watch Amadeus movie, imo it captures Mozart nature perfectly. Music doesn't have to be analyzed to prove quality, otherwise all the modern music would pass at top, being intellectually very complex and interesting, yet plain ugly when to listen.
its funny how Gould looked and talked like a villian here when all he talked about was how this Mozart concerto was distasteful but he played it anyway
To my knowledge, he was a big fan of the New Viennese school composers, having recorded numerous works by Schoenberg as well as Webern’s variations, Berg’s op.1 and even some Krenek (!), but dismissed later music such as Boulez as ‘not music’. Not sure about Stravinsky, though. Oh, and he did some Richard Strauss, too. Which, to me, is quite confusing given his general disdain for romantic era music.
He called Richard Strauss and Arnold Schoenberg the two giants of the 20th century. He didn't have general disdain for romantic music, he liked Wagner for example, but he hated Chopin. He said that he is most interested in contrapuntal music, and it doesn't really matter if it's Bach's counterpoint, or Wagner's or Schoenberg's.
Glenn should have listened to some pianists that actually played Mozart well. He does not address the fact that these works were composed for a keyboard at the time that had limitations unlike the modern day piano.
I mean isn't Mozart's entire schtick for composing is all about simplicity? I mean of course not overly simple but something easily digestible by the viewer/listener. The motif is very easy to understand in most of Mozart's works.
It's amazing how brilliant this man was, but all his criticisms of Mozart were nothing more than dressed up horseshit. And no, I'm more of a Beethoven guy, not a Wolfy fanatic.
Little Bach Book was my good night music. Now I don' t like his Bach. Glenn Gould was a Bach addicted. Playing and playing again, he played Glenn Gould Bach. And he was no more capable to understand and appreciate any other composer except for Glenn Gould Bach.
Boy, does he love to hear himself talk! Gould was a genius, and also an utter gas-bag. My love of Mozart doesn't extend to his piano sonatas, with one or two exceptions. So I'm not scandalized to hear that someone isn't a fan of them. But his decision to release an album of the sonatas to show how badly they could be played was pure assholery.
Virtuosi have always had it in for Mozart because he preceded the advent of the flamboyant soloist; you can't be a show-off with Mozart's music. Gould's highly limited genius was to present an acoustic version of switched-on Bach that stimulated record sales among anti-electronica snobs. If not for Wendy Carlos, Gould would have gotten nowhere. An overrated eccentric, a one-trick pony.
I mean the audacity its one think to dislike Mozarts music but to make a whole film about it. As much as Glenn was "a genius" I never liked the man. Everyone had to adapt to him whole orchestras and conductors and its the same frickin sentence "Aw but he is a genius" . I dont give a damn weirdo you wanna play play by the rules. If I was a conducter I wpuld slap his ass out of my hall..
so what isn't a cliche? cadences? trills? turns? mordents? appoggiaturas? suspensions? cambiatas? scales? arpeggios? chords? chord progressions? It's like criticizing an author for using nouns, verbs, adjectives, grammar, punctuation, the word "the". Notes moving in sequence = a scale; in jumps= an arpeggio; played together=a chord. Take GG's favorite composer, Bach. C major prelude, 1st book: nothing but arpeggios. Any fugue: modulating sequences. Coda over a pedal point. Mozart didn't reach a peak and decline: late Mozart is profound. The C-minor and D-minor concertos. Symph. #40. The Requiem. Clarinet concerto. This is just GG being a smartass, like Bernstein's BS about how Beethoven couldn't write a melody (after pinching the slow movement of the Emperor for "There's a Place For You"). The 20th century was characterized by originalism - a self-conscious quest for originality for its own sake; a cheap way of achieving it was originality by omission: let's lose tonality, melody, harmony, rhythm ... ending up with Cage's brilliant parody, 4'33", which omits everything. Serialism was new and exciting in the 1920s, but by mid-century it had taken over the music schools and became sterile academicism. An overreaction to the excesses of late romanticism led to reverence for the composer and fidelity to the score (though the composers themselves rarely played a piece the same way twice), the discouragement of improvisation, the decline of the virtuoso-composer (I think Rachmaninoff was the last), with the end result that self-conscious modernism failed to find an audience, while the great music of the past became a museum piece. Growing up in that environment, no wonder a free spirit like GG felt constrained. The attraction of the baroque for him I think is the sparsity of notation, which allowed him maximum freedom of interpretation, with the challenge of playing an instrument that the composer didn't anticipate and bringing out polyphony on an instrument with only one register, but capable of dynamic variation. I think we have gotten past the reverential phase, along with the fallacy that music that has wide popular appeal is necessarily trivial (Mozart certainly wrote for the masses, before recorded music, when people would hear a given composition once in their lifetime if ever; hence repetition and simplicity, but without sacrificing elegance, grace and beauty). Not intellectual enough for Gould. He was asked who the greatest piano composer was. He answered "Chopin, I suppose, but I wouldn't touch him with a 10-foot pole" (Chopin himself was a 5'6" Pole). But he did play some Grieg, who was his mother's cousin. Asked about Halvorsen, he might have replied: "Norwegian music is all Grieg to me". Besides all that, GG just enjoyed being a Bête Noire, so his opinions need not be taken too seriously.
What you write hear is thoughtful indeed but I fully agree with GG. The piano sonatas suck! I go to Mozart for other things like the Coronation Mass, Jupiter, A major symphony 28, the Hunt Quartet, etc. But the piano music is cliche and trash!
@@dkant4511 dont know if you realize but calling mozarts piano music trash you make a tremendous fool of yourself for everyone to see, and a complete ignorant as well. The concertos and some sonatas, the early ones and some of the midle ones were and are considered masterpieces even by the greatest musicians of the 20 and 19 centuries. And by calling it cliche you show that you have no idea about the music that mozart's contemporaries were writing, and how superior mozart and haydn were to them.
@@ignacioclerici5341 That's like saying Beyonce or Taylor Swift is the best of our generation. Just because Mozart is more palatable and interesting than Stamitz doesn't make it all great. I've already given my disclaimer above. It's nuanced enough (;
@@dkant4511 I used to get bored of them too. But I've been playing them a lot more recently. Their beauty lies in a certain simplicity that once you accept can be very gratifying.
Two important and overlooked points: (1) all classic art music is part of the literary tradition and (2) all performances of it are, in some part, literary criticism. Gould’s remarks may be contrarian, such as his “Mozart died too late, rather than too early,” but he always shares with many other pianists, like Charles Rosen, Daniel Barenboim, or Alfred Brendel, a sincere commitment to the big conversation.
"By the time Mozart wrote that concerto, Mozart was already passed his peak as a composer." Says the piano player mostly known for his paranoid schizophrenia.
Even though he dislikes the redundancy, some part of his soul loves the elegance -- you can see it on his face!
This is a phenomenon I've given a lot of thought to: the apparent body language of pianists. I'm a low-competence amateur who overreaches in very difficult repertoire, and increasingly I find that the body language I used to interpret as complete engrossment or rapture/ecstasy (the closed eyes and open mouth as the torso sways or jerks around) in the pianist is very different from how it looks. It's that even in very poor or disliked or mediocre music, the body will go along with it as if it's great music because the way a pianist plays is the way a pianist plays, and it's not about the quality of the music. If you're a musician on Gould's level (not that I would pretend to know), the body reacts to and processes even hackneyed gestures, scales, runs, sequences etc. based on involuntary physiological responses.
There really isn't a contradiction, though there appears to be. Well, this how it all seems to me at any rate.
Gould was a kind of guy to eat the whole meal in the restaurant and then complain about the food.
that's me
I heard he went into a Cafe and ordered 4 oysters. The menu listed half a dozen. Rather then order 6 and eat 4, he left. He was nuts.
And he'd also complain that the portions were too small!
Ayo yo memes are actually good bruh
He had the right to his own opinions….there’s no need to be rude about his genius. The only people who can disagree are those at his level. Are any of you there? Didn’t think so.
He’s right. And the corporate analogy is exactly apt. On the other hand, Glenn didn’t have either a family to feed or a tone-deaf boss demanding he produce a concerto by a sudden deadline. Beethoven, a more sympathetic critic, distinguished between Mozart’s “real” works and the to-deadline “corporate” ones when, on a student’s piano, he singled out the A Major string quartet that we know today as KV 464 and said: “There is a piece! There is where Mozart said to the world, “See what I could do for you if I had had the time!””
It's brilliant. After hearing this , Mozart's piano music sounded like inter- office memos ! Mozart, though always delightful, was at his best when he forgot his own " recipe " and the usual formula was abandoned, disguised, or used in a brand new way. The very early concerti for example. There is a form, but it's not yet the 1 from column A, 2 from B, repeat, cadence, column C. Haydn's formula perhaps. Or #23. All the usual stuff, but used in a different way. I've never cared for the sonatas. They sound like element fed into a computer and printed out. Luckily for the world, when Mozart was not inspired, he composed "normal" everyday beautiful music. It's all great, with some being divinely great. I heard Clifford Curzon say Mozart had the ability to elevate his mood , whatever the circumstance. I find 1/2 hour a day eliminated the need for anti depressant medication, if you make the time. Great way to start the day
@@jefolson6989 Your quoting Sir Clifford reminds me of something relevant that Artur Schnabel said-this time in relation to Schubert, “Music is interesting in inverse proportion to how it is used to deal with the problems of musicians. Schubert’s is interesting because it is better than it can possibly be played.”
Beethoven also wrote these crowd pleasing pieces under time constraints, some of which GG also critizises. It seems he should have put these works into context given the circumstances under which they were written.
@@alhfgsp It seems unfair that a stone-deaf man who is capable of writing Op. 131 can be criticized two hundred years later by a pianist with ten fingers, but in a sense it’s an acknowledgement of Beethoven’s continued relevance, which is very important now. He’s been called a rapist, citing no historical evidence, by musical politicians at places like Harvard University and Bowdoin College, which is part of a larger concerted effort now to “debunk Beethoven,” along with most other canonic composers, that Glenn could never have anticipated. Beethoven has an unassailable place in the history of ideas-and it’s to be hoped that Glenn’s voice will, over much more time, prove a valuable addition to that history.
@@mylesjordan9970 This "debunking Beethoven" movement is in the same vein as discarding Tchaikovsky over Russian actions in the Ukraine conflict. Both have the sentiment of making people guilty by association, in both cases extremely loosely. Beethoven was anti-war and believed in individual liberty. He spent his life making commission off of writing music, not slave labor, but because he was a white man during that time a few people consider him no different from imperialistic white men, whom beethoven despised. Tchaikovsky was at odds with the Russian government being a known homosexual, but because he was technically born in Russia a few consider him just as bad as the Russian government. I may be a progressive leftist like many in the classical music community but there are people amoung us that should be pensive to call themselves leftists at all for perpetuating lies about composers of the past and generalizing based on race or nationality.
I find this commentary on Mozart interesting because my late husband felt the same way about many of Mozart's compositions. We never got around to discussing this in detail. Somehow, Glenn is explaing it to me now.
To be as accomplished as he is and be able to verbalize about the pieces .
I'm duly impressed !!!
This is hysterical. The title is perfect.
With Glenn Gould, you have to take some and leave some. Of course, if you don't put your heart into it, the music becomes uninteresting. A cascade of notes deprived of its essence.
my reaction to this is 'yeah he's a bad composer when you play it like that'
Do consider that a composer no less than Beethoven held this Mozart C minor piano concerto in such very high regard that his own concerto in the same key is clearly influenced by it. Notably, referring to the Mozart C minor concerto's third movement changing to 6/8 time in the final pages, Beethoven admiringly commented the following to his friend Ferdinand Ries: "Oh, my dear Ries, we would never get such an idea."
Mozart met the younger Beethoven and remarked words to the effect that he had high hopes for Beethoven's success in music.
I think Gould is referring to the many composition which are delightful, but dashed off using the Mozart formula. What goes up, then comes down. Very business like. The greatest of Mozarts pieces were inspired and usually not a product of his " 9-5 job". The Requiem of course, some of the symphonies, a handful of the piano concerti and sonatas. A fairly small percentage of his total output. His "everyday beautiful " compositions have the corporate , cookie cutter feel because they were. The average person at the time, long before recordings that could be studied and compared, wouldn't have noticed recycled material or patterns . They heard them once. Mozart probably could have been less creative and gotten away with it. Why knock yourself out being creative when the music is for background at the Dukes dinner party? Being Mozart, he couldn't help being brilliant, even when it was corporate and from the assembly line
@@jefolson6989 , undoubtedly. But having Beethoven's very deep admiration for such a dashed-off composition is still quite an endorsement.
@@MarilynCrosbieNo, fake story.
He’s not wrong, but not right either. As many people would say, Mozart never meant to be so much of an inventor as say Beethoven or Debussy, and the strength of his music lies in its elegance, precision and coherence. He was in the business perfecting classical music, nothing more, nothing less. And if you find it boring, that’s just your musical taste. Moreover, what he speaks of as clichés could as well be regarded as certain ‘syntaxes’ in music that can work extremely well when applied in a particular manor. Mozart was an absolute king at this.
Good compilation. Thanks for sharing!
shilly-shallying, love it.
Funny rumor: To prove himself to be correct, Glenn Gould had record quite a large proportion of Mozart repertoire with his own unique interpretation.
Yeah, I know he did all his piano sonatas, piano fantasies in d minor and c minor, concerto No 24, and prelude and fugue in c. And I love his take on each of them
He said he loved the early music of Mozart although he couldn't find a rational justification to it.
He does provide a rational justification in the original video
lmao, i wonder if the juxtaposition was intentional, GG was somewhat of a comedian after all
Thank you for this
The importance of having a perpetually critical appreciation - but also a reverent respect towards things as they are - is inevitably felt with hindsight and maturity; for one is either inauthentic or myopic without the other.
0:06, 0:24, 0:55, 1:12, 1:47
I love GG and I love Mozart; I feel slightly conflicted 😅
It's ok, they're not having a melee fight
Gould was the Bobby Fischer of pianists. Prodigal but a pain the ass.
Glenn Gould was fucking weird.
Makes Music sound like a typing pool.
I wonder if Gould was prancing us since he plays the piece he criticizes and he plays it incredibly perfect?
Philip Gershkovich (the book is “About music”):
“….Consequently, the picture of the phrase at this level gives us the opportunity to correctly understand SCHOENBERG’s words that Mozart is more COMPLICATED than Beethoven….
….Mozart's cliche is a brick. If I have the opportunity, I will take any one of Mozart's cliches, and one that looks like a "trick", and show how it, this cliche, without changing, changes its function every time in a different work. And Mozart was creative precisely in that he gave completely new functions to the same cliches every time. And if we perceive Mozart's cliches without getting to his function, which is always different, new, then, of course, Mozart's genius, which is perceived even by the simple gaze of the most mediocre people, those people who are unable to know what a function is, cannot but be absurd…”
That’s very interesting 🤔 Glenn didn’t know Mozart well??? Is he pretending?
“It sounds like office memos. I love office memos!”
This is so funny!
The way this man explains things ...
I don't think I ever heard anyone describe a work by Mozart as an "inter-office" memo before. I can see the value in distinguishing Mozart's master works from ones that were less inspired, rather than just assuming everything is just as good. Still, the worst piece by Mozart is better than most of the music to exist in the world anyway.
the last part doesnt really matter at all
@@EntelSidious_gamzeylmz what last part?
@@ignacioclerici5341 the last sentence
진짜 존나잘친다 갓굴드
Sequence, his favourite time-consumer. :) Yes, but Bach abuses of sequences too.
Bach only abused sequences in his early works, like the first toccatas. In middle and late Bach sequences are embellished, inflected, transformed, etc.
@@garrysmodsketches Yes, Bach' sequences have a great work of counterpoint and voice leading, they are not trivial, never. We can't say the same about Mozart's sequences.
When you can hear and perfectly phrase multiple melodic lines at once with pristine accuracy, everything else must sound like garbage. I can't even imagine how Gould would recoil hearing modern pop music.
He LOVED pop music. Petula Clark, Twiggy, Barbara Streisand ( if that could be called "pop'.. it's what he listened to while driving around in his land yacht. ( an Oldsmobile Toronado, or something like that. )
@@jefolson6989 Yeah...but modern pop? All of artists that you listed are of actual quality and substance (and some classical training as well), but many modern performers don't have any of that. Those that do are certainly worth listening to, but if Gould was literally complaining that some Bach and Mozart works were drab, contrite, predictible, etc, a 4 or 8 par line that is manufactured and performed by people that heavily rely on auto-tune and simply look the part and know how to press a spacebar, which is then vomited up for mass consumption would most likely not be well received by a man that thought some Mozart or (J.S.) Bachs works were uninspired or lazy. 😂
You are, like Gould, entitled to your opinion, of course.
If it wasn't for Bach, Mozart (Haydn and Beethoven) wouldn't be worth listening to! They had access to his works and learned a great deal. Other composers didn't. Schubert couldn't Google Bach either. Besides that Gould is absolutely right. While Mozart knew Bach the fashion du jour was to be as vain as possible! This at the expense of great music
How Mozart Became A Bad Composer (1968)" clickbait is the norm since....
I have huge respect for glenn gould, but I think it is a little unclear what point he was trying to make and, especially, why.
@@tarokan_nor He pointed out the overhyped nature of Mozart's musical ability and in the program he dismantled it and had proven why it is so.
@@valtrberg901 yes, and I would agree with that, I'm not the biggest fan of mozart myself, but isn't it kind of known that Mozarts music isnt overly complex? Complexity wasnt what they were aiming for in the viennese school.
@@tarokan_nor How about the fugue finale to the Jupiter Symphony, or his String Quintets?
@@tarokan_nor He simply doesn't enjoy Mozart's music and prattles on about it in a way that superficially sounds profound, but is essentially blather. "Cliches, self parody" lol Seriously, every composer has patterns that they repeat over and over again and Gould's criticisms against Mozart could easily be levied against every other composer, especially, and sonewhat ironically considering the critic, Bach!
He talks and looks like a villain here.
That's what I was thinking too
For a surreal experience, there is a video of Gould interviewing Stokowski. Part cringe, part hilarious. You need to see it!
@@jefolson6989 I've seen few parts by watching memes on him, but never seen the complete interview, Im gonna see it soon
@@fabiomangone9789 I just re watched it. Gould's questions are impossible and Stokie is right on the edge of dementia. They barely touch on music, but interesting to see them interact. 2 crazy geniuses....
Are you kidding? What masterpieces have you produced?
I never cared for Mozart piano music and this sums it up!
What?! How? Why?
I havent analysed enough mozart to say if I agree myself but i definitely agree with the general point
most mozart feels really uninspired
@@EntelSidious_gamzeylmz There is nothing to analyze, Mozart is one of the most amazing musics ever written. Gould was a total idiot on this matter, even the greatest have their weird aspects.
@@Paroles_et_Musique yes and I havent looked enough at said analyses, in order for me to comment on it I would have had to
@@EntelSidious_gamzeylmz Just watch Amadeus movie, imo it captures Mozart nature perfectly.
Music doesn't have to be analyzed to prove quality, otherwise all the modern music would pass at top, being intellectually very complex and interesting, yet plain ugly when to listen.
The roast of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
its funny how Gould looked and talked like a villian here when all he talked about was how this Mozart concerto was distasteful but he played it anyway
He’s basically me when I have to list all my cons
Do you have the complete video?
I don't, but it can be found on CZcams. Here it is czcams.com/video/1pR74rorRxs/video.html&feature=shares
@@tarokan_nor Very kind of you! Thanks!
He was the man in the arena. He never succumbed to the critics. He was brilliant.
Does anyone know what Gould thought of 20th century composers in general ? I feel like he’s the type of guy to snob most of it
To my knowledge, he was a big fan of the New Viennese school composers, having recorded numerous works by Schoenberg as well as Webern’s variations, Berg’s op.1 and even some Krenek (!), but dismissed later music such as Boulez as ‘not music’. Not sure about Stravinsky, though. Oh, and he did some Richard Strauss, too. Which, to me, is quite confusing given his general disdain for romantic era music.
He called Richard Strauss and Arnold Schoenberg the two giants of the 20th century. He didn't have general disdain for romantic music, he liked Wagner for example, but he hated Chopin. He said that he is most interested in contrapuntal music, and it doesn't really matter if it's Bach's counterpoint, or Wagner's or Schoenberg's.
Glenn should have listened to some pianists that actually played Mozart well. He does not address the fact that these works were composed for a keyboard at the time that had limitations unlike the modern day piano.
This is effing hilarious. But Gould didn't really understand Mozart.
What is called the piece played in this video?
Mainly Mozarts Piano concerto in c minor
@@tarokan_nor thanks
Thank God Gould never got to hear the music of the 21st century
Because going crazy wasn't really an option he could choose anymore😂
The worst thing about this video is the title.
I mean isn't Mozart's entire schtick for composing is all about simplicity? I mean of course not overly simple but something easily digestible by the viewer/listener. The motif is very easy to understand in most of Mozart's works.
It's amazing how brilliant this man was, but all his criticisms of Mozart were nothing more than dressed up horseshit. And no, I'm more of a Beethoven guy, not a Wolfy fanatic.
You have my utmost respect!
He has some valid critiques
Little Bach Book was my good night music.
Now I don' t like his Bach.
Glenn Gould was a Bach addicted.
Playing and playing again, he played Glenn Gould Bach. And he was no more capable to understand and appreciate any other composer except for Glenn Gould Bach.
I think that he was jealous of Mozart, maybe he would loved to write this music.
Glad i found this video. I've been saying for a long time that Mozart is THE most overrated composer ever and his fame of his name is artificial.
Hahahahahahaha!
Boy, does he love to hear himself talk! Gould was a genius, and also an utter gas-bag. My love of Mozart doesn't extend to his piano sonatas, with one or two exceptions. So I'm not scandalized to hear that someone isn't a fan of them. But his decision to release an album of the sonatas to show how badly they could be played was pure assholery.
Well you can't tell his is wrong
Virtuosi have always had it in for Mozart because he preceded the advent of the flamboyant soloist; you can't be a show-off with Mozart's music. Gould's highly limited genius was to present an acoustic version of switched-on Bach that stimulated record sales among anti-electronica snobs. If not for Wendy Carlos, Gould would have gotten nowhere. An overrated eccentric, a one-trick pony.
I mean the audacity its one think to dislike Mozarts music but to make a whole film about it. As much as Glenn was "a genius" I never liked the man. Everyone had to adapt to him whole orchestras and conductors and its the same frickin sentence "Aw but he is a genius" . I dont give a damn weirdo you wanna play play by the rules. If I was a conducter I wpuld slap his ass out of my hall..
@@micoveliki8729 LOL
so what isn't a cliche? cadences? trills? turns? mordents? appoggiaturas? suspensions? cambiatas? scales? arpeggios? chords? chord progressions? It's like criticizing an author for using nouns, verbs, adjectives, grammar, punctuation, the word "the". Notes moving in sequence = a scale; in jumps= an arpeggio; played together=a chord. Take GG's favorite composer, Bach. C major prelude, 1st book: nothing but arpeggios. Any fugue: modulating sequences. Coda over a pedal point. Mozart didn't reach a peak and decline: late Mozart is profound. The C-minor and D-minor concertos. Symph. #40. The Requiem. Clarinet concerto.
This is just GG being a smartass, like Bernstein's BS about how Beethoven couldn't write a melody (after pinching the slow movement of the Emperor for "There's a Place For You").
The 20th century was characterized by originalism - a self-conscious quest for originality for its own sake; a cheap way of achieving it was originality by omission: let's lose tonality, melody, harmony, rhythm ... ending up with Cage's brilliant parody, 4'33", which omits everything. Serialism was new and exciting in the 1920s, but by mid-century it had taken over the music schools and became sterile academicism. An overreaction to the excesses of late romanticism led to reverence for the composer and fidelity to the score (though the composers themselves rarely played a piece the same way twice), the discouragement of improvisation, the decline of the virtuoso-composer (I think Rachmaninoff was the last), with the end result that self-conscious modernism failed to find an audience, while the great music of the past became a museum piece.
Growing up in that environment, no wonder a free spirit like GG felt constrained. The attraction of the baroque for him I think is the sparsity of notation, which allowed him maximum freedom of interpretation, with the challenge of playing an instrument that the composer didn't anticipate and bringing out polyphony on an instrument with only one register, but capable of dynamic variation.
I think we have gotten past the reverential phase, along with the fallacy that music that has wide popular appeal is necessarily trivial (Mozart certainly wrote for the masses, before recorded music, when people would hear a given composition once in their lifetime if ever; hence repetition and simplicity, but without sacrificing elegance, grace and beauty). Not intellectual enough for Gould. He was asked who the greatest piano composer was. He answered "Chopin, I suppose, but I wouldn't touch him with a 10-foot pole" (Chopin himself was a 5'6" Pole). But he did play some Grieg, who was his mother's cousin. Asked about Halvorsen, he might have replied: "Norwegian music is all Grieg to me".
Besides all that, GG just enjoyed being a Bête Noire, so his opinions need not be taken too seriously.
What you write hear is thoughtful indeed but I fully agree with GG. The piano sonatas suck! I go to Mozart for other things like the Coronation Mass, Jupiter, A major symphony 28, the Hunt Quartet, etc. But the piano music is cliche and trash!
@@dkant4511 dont know if you realize but calling mozarts piano music trash you make a tremendous fool of yourself for everyone to see, and a complete ignorant as well.
The concertos and some sonatas, the early ones and some of the midle ones were and are considered masterpieces even by the greatest musicians of the 20 and 19 centuries.
And by calling it cliche you show that you have no idea about the music that mozart's contemporaries were writing, and how superior mozart and haydn were to them.
@@ignacioclerici5341 That's like saying Beyonce or Taylor Swift is the best of our generation. Just because Mozart is more palatable and interesting than Stamitz doesn't make it all great. I've already given my disclaimer above. It's nuanced enough (;
@@dkant4511 I used to get bored of them too. But I've been playing them a lot more recently. Their beauty lies in a certain simplicity that once you accept can be very gratifying.
Two important and overlooked points: (1) all classic art music is part of the literary tradition and (2) all performances of it are, in some part, literary criticism. Gould’s remarks may be contrarian, such as his “Mozart died too late, rather than too early,” but he always shares with many other pianists, like Charles Rosen, Daniel Barenboim, or Alfred Brendel, a sincere commitment to the big conversation.
"By the time Mozart wrote that concerto, Mozart was already passed his peak as a composer." Says the piano player mostly known for his paranoid schizophrenia.
Such an arrogant and pompous prat. I’ve never liked Gould and he was and is tremendously over-rated.
then dont playit !!! duhh ???