New From CBC In Time For Christmas: Two Specially-Priced Boxed Sets Featuring Legendary Pianist Glenn Gould
Posted by David in NewsOn October 30, Naxos releases two specially-priced box sets on CBC featuring legendary Canadian pianist Glenn Gould.
Glenn Gould’s broadcast recital from Toronto for the Canadian Broadcasting system in December 1950 was an historic event, resulting in a relationship with the CBC which lasted until his death. All performances on GLENN GOULD: THE YOUNG MAVERICK, with the exception of the Partita No. 5, were taken from radio broadcasts made between 1951 and 1955.
In 1955, Gould signed the recording contract with Columbia Records that catapulted him to worldwide fame with the Goldberg Variations. The Goldberg Variations performed on this set were recorded in 1954, a year before the historic Columbia release. All of the performances on this set reveal an artist of exceptional depth and maturity, who “[turned] performance into composition.”
GLENN GOULD: THE YOUNG MAVERICK also features a selection of Beethoven works that includes two sonatas (Nos. 19 and 28), the Eroica variations, Concertos Nos. 1-3, and a performance of Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 70, No. 1 “Ghost” with renowned violinist Alexander Schneider and cellist Zara Nelsova.
Most importantly, this set includes early recordings of works by Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern, a group of composers who were as close to Gould’s heart as Bach was—and whose work he championed throughout his career. The liner notes cite an interview Gould gave to the CBC Times in 1952, in which he stated that “It in his [Schoenberg’s] music, that we first find the restoration of pure contrapuntal craftsmanship which had surely not existed to the same intense degree in any music since that of J.S. Bach.” But perhaps the greatest testament to Gould’s love of the Viennese school composers came from Schoenberg’s widow, who called his performance of her husband’s Piano Concerto “unmatched.
This special edition 5-CD box set brings together all of the radio documentaries in the CBC Records catalogue, featuring Glenn Gould in a role in which he excelled: radio artist. After his 1950 broadcast debut as a pianist from the studios of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Gould began to develop broadcasts in which he discussed music with others, though he often wrote both sides of the conversation himself. When CBC began television broadcasting in 1952, Gould was among its inaugural performers, becoming a regular figure on Canadian television. By his death in 1982, he had appeared on CBC radio and television nearly 150 times as pianist, interviewer, commentator, and producer.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Canadian philosophers like Marshall McLuhan—whose famous phrase “the medium is the message” still resonates today—explored the psychological, social, and political effects of media. Gould, who knew McLuhan, clearly understood and embraced the power of media. GLENN GOULD: THE RADIO ARTIST features three of Gould’s seminal radio broadcasts: The Idea of North (1967), The Latecomers (broadcast in 1969), and The Quiet in the Land (1977). Broadly speaking, these documentaries explore the isolation and solitude with which Gould is associated; on a more profound level, however, they delve into the “value of singularity”: isolation as a means of expressing individual values and beliefs.
In The Idea of North, Gould uses available technology in innovative ways, featuring the sounds of a train traveling northeast as the piece’s foundation. Voices are woven into the texture almost contrapuntally—sometimes clearly heard, sometimes not. The only “music” featured is Sibelius’ Symphony No. 5, which signals the end of both the train ride and the program. The Latecomers is about the province of Newfoundland, which is both historically and geographically isolated from the rest of Canada. The final work in the trilogy, The Quiet in the Land, profiles a Mennonite community in southern Manitoba. It is presented in five scenes, linked by a church service. It is the most sonically complex of the trilogy, weaving in sounds of speakers, singers, ambient sounds, a choir, and a rock singer.
Gould was perhaps best known for his radio discussions on music. In 1962, he wrote and narrated Arnold Schoenberg: The Man Who Changed Music, which signaled a shift in his career to producer of sound documentaries. GLENN GOULD: THE RADIO ARTIST features musical portraits of conductor Leopold Stokowski and cellist Pablo Casals, recorded between the second and third parts of the trilogy. The Stokowski portrait consists of the conductor’s voice juxtaposed against a montage of his performances. The Casals documentary uses various speakers with a primary narrator “in the contrapuntal manner Gould had developed.”
After Gould gave final performance in 1964, he devoted himself to electronic media. His multi-layered ‘contrapuntal’ structure in documentary-making was ahead of its time and remains unique today.
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