I never thought this would happen
Feb. 12th, 2011 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpbI shut down a CD half-way through. I shut it down because I could not stomach the music; and the music, if you please, was Beethoven's Piano Sonata op.57, the Appassionata.
The trouble is that it was played by Glenn Gould. Now I have heard GG perfomances that I liked, but this one can only be described as perverse. It was incredibly long, but that was the least of it; it was long because every figure, every passage, every note, was lingered on to an incredible extent. Trills, which are meant to trill if not to thrill, were practically broken apart into their component sounds. background figures which only serve to make the foreground stand out were brought to the forefront and treated like main themes. Over the whole performance hung a mephitic cloud of intellectual vanity. Worst of all, he makes it boring; and that is the one thing Beethoven never is. ,.
The trouble is that it was played by Glenn Gould. Now I have heard GG perfomances that I liked, but this one can only be described as perverse. It was incredibly long, but that was the least of it; it was long because every figure, every passage, every note, was lingered on to an incredible extent. Trills, which are meant to trill if not to thrill, were practically broken apart into their component sounds. background figures which only serve to make the foreground stand out were brought to the forefront and treated like main themes. Over the whole performance hung a mephitic cloud of intellectual vanity. Worst of all, he makes it boring; and that is the one thing Beethoven never is. ,.
