Customer Reviews

Brahms: 4 Ballades, Op. 10; 2 Rhapsodies, Op. 79; 10 Intermezzi

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This recording is proof that there is more to Gould than the strict Bach-ian architecture he is most renowned for. Here we see a gushing romantic revealing something intimate, something we feel almost ashamed to have witnessed but are grateful for the trust. One can imagine him in his famous dwarfish chair, huddled over his fingers, breathing on the keys, unable to stifle an occasional ecstatic hum as he gets carried away with his own recreation, allowing something repressed to spill out in the notes, betraying his ideal of "artist as zero" with the filter of his emotion.

Here Gould does the unspeakable--rubato, dynamic development, damper pedalling...in short, he plays pianistically. His technique is excellent, as expected, though it might make one wonder why anyone with such a controlled pedal technique would shun its use.

Also, the interpretation is, for Gould, remarkably faithful to the score. There is the occasional exception, most notably in the second ballade where he plays a little bit with the broken chords, but overall he doesn't succumb to the idiosyncrasies we have come to expect from him.

As something of a bonus, the booklet contains a fictionalized Gould/gould interview which is pretty funny, though it apparently wasn't actually scripted by him.

Just to clarify, the second disc (the collection of intermezzi) was recorded in the 60's, but the first disc (ballades and rhapsodies) was digitally recorded in 1982, shortly before his death. There's something about that which lends something vital to this recording, akin to Horowitz's rendition of Isolde's Liebestod on his final recording. Beautiful and heartbreaking music making.

If I may, Glenn Gould's contribution is to leave the beaten tracks of romantism and to lead us into unknown territory. His fairly radical options seem to unravel the texture of Brahms' contrapuntic scores. In doing so, Gould gives us the opportunity of a rare feast...

Combined with more classical versions (could I suggest Julius Katchen and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli ?), this is a vision that makes us realise the depth of the music's underlying harmony.

Contrary to the previous reviewer (whose point on the intermezzi makes fascinating reading...), I bought this CD for the ballads. Two of them are particularly remarkable. The tempo of the first one is so stretched that it magically takes you to the melancholic views of the North Sea beaches that inspired Brahms. On the contrary, the left hand's presence in the third ballad (to be opposed to Michelangeli's interpretation which is led by a very nervous right hand) brings an unsuspected warmth in the middle section.

Do you really like Brahms ? If you do, you will join me in thanking Glenn Gould for leaving us this recording...

I would not regularly write a review, but seeing someone award this undboutly seminal recording 1 out of 5 stars makes you wonder about taste and understanding on the behalf of such a person. The 10 Intermezzi are without any question the seminal recoding of this piece, and what a beautiful piece this is. Gould's interpretation of the Ballades does indeed not live up to the expectations that the Intermezzi might awaken, they are somewhat along the lines of his Mozart that you are more likely to find interesting than enlightning. Still, the intermezzi alone are worth the money - they are among the most astounding recordings of romantic music. (Incidentally, to claim that Gould 'does not understand' his music is laughable: all that Gould says is that preparation of the recording was more of a mental than of a physical act to him- it happens in his head. And to my friend the other reviewer: there's no way you are older than early 20s, or at least let's hope for it. Come back to the recording in 10 years)

A pianist who made his mark with spare and precise recordings of Bach, Gould here shows a romantic and passionate side that may surprise many listeners unfamiliar with this regrettably small portion of his discography. Gould himself thought these recordings among his best, and I wouldn't quarrel. Over the years, I've listened to just about every recording of the Intermezzi ever made, and while Gould's has its drawbacks (notably his notorious humming and the now less-than-stellar sound quality) they're still my favorites by a league. If only he had returned to the Intermezzi to take advantage of digital recording technology! The recording of the Ballades, on the other hand, is not only a fine interpretation but also sonically good. The 4th is especially moving.

I began my affair with GG approximately 30 years ago with the Bach and Mozart recordings. With each passing year my admiration for GG's art increases exponentially. It's really a blessing that Sony has reissued all GG's work with such elegance and clairity. There are other great keyboardists (e.g., Kempff; Schiff; Biggs; Lupu; Pires; Pollini; Arrau, et al.), but none can rival Gould: he is THE artist par excellence.

These Brahms recordings are wonderful in many ways. The Intermezzi are all from the year 1960. I was about to add, "when Gould was in his prime," but that would obscure the fact that GG's prime was from 1950 till his death in 1982, during which time his incredible critique and technique neither increased nor diminished: for thirty years he maintained an absolutely astral trajectory of aesthetic.

The 4 Ballades and 2 Rhapsodies were recorded the year of his death; yet, they reveal no morbidity nor diminution, but rather vitality and virility.

Of course, the Intermezzi are wonderful. Lupu and Kempff both recorded these very well too, but my vote is for GG with these. As to Ballades and Rhapsodies, GG's realizations are superb, and what particularly strikes me is Gould's synthesis of late-Romanticism and early-Modernism in these visions: Gould sees a gestalt of Brahms's, Berg's, Schoenberg's, Strauss's, Hindemith's, and Scriabin's piano works of c.1890-1930; and, if you listen very closely to GG's realizations of the aforementioned's oeuvre, you may see it too. For example, compare Brahms's 2 Rhapsodies, Op. 79 with Schoenberg's 2 Piano Pieces, Op. 33; or, compare the Brahms Ballades and Intermezzi with the piano work of Schoenberg's Songs, Opp. 2; 3; 6; 12; and especially the song-cycle, The Book of the Hanging Gardens, Op. 15. (The Schoenberg songs by GG are worth noting exclusively for their piano work alone.) Compare Berg's Sonata, Op. 1 with Scriabine's Sonata No. 5, Op. 53; compare Hindemith's song-cycle The Life of Mary with Strauss's Enoch Arden, etc.

All highly recommended.

Gould was not too sure about Beethoven and downright contemptuous of Mozart, but about Brahms he entertained no doubts at all. Let me say without more ado that this disc has some of the greatest Brahms-playing I ever heard or ever expect to. If one thing more than any made an impression on me, it was his handling of the central part of the G minor rhapsody. This sequence is in a uniquely Brahmsian mood and tone, like the passages marked `tranquillo' in the middle of the finale of the second symphony and in the slow section of the tragic overture. None of these are lyrical in style and Brahms doesn't actually say `tranquillo' here in the rhapsody, but the feel is the same. The one thing I can put my finger on explicitly is the way Gould gives the right prominence to the monotonous triplet accompaniment, but there's more to it than that, and as the scripture has it `the hair of my flesh stood up'.

Except in the B minor rhapsody, Gould uses the sustaining pedal a great deal and to great effect. The first ballade made an impact right away. It's taken at a fair tempo for `andante', just slower than I'm used to, and very emotional and theatrical. The other three don't lend themselves to the same kind of treatment, but my impression in all four was much more `personal' than I get from Katchen or Michelangeli. There is a fair amount of rubato, but not as much as he makes it seem, if that makes sense. In the two rhapsodies the style of playing is distinctly different from the rest - less pedal and very little latitude in the tempo. This suits the B minor very well, I found. The G minor is taken at a fairly deliberate pace, and no wonder considering the composer indicates `non troppo allegro'. As a rule I am no stickler for the observance of repeats, but this G minor rhapsody is so marvellously done that I longed to hear the first section done again, and there was nothing else for it but just to repeat the whole thing.

By the end of the first disc I was beginning to suspect that I was going to find nothing eccentric or perverse in the entire recital. I needn't have worried. Gould becomes a little more wilful in the selection of ten intermezzi, but there was only one that I simply couldn't take. Oh the poor A major piece from op 76! What did it do to deserve this? It is one of my favourites of the lot, and it has more ways of perming 3 against 2 in the rhythm than I would otherwise have thought possible. I was a fair way into it before I could even recognise what I was listening to. Katchen always seemed to me a little unadventurous in his playing of it, but I shall go back to his account with relief not to say desperation after the mauling Gould dishes out. Elsewhere Gould's originality wins me over even when I'm used to a different approach. The B minor that stands first in op 119 is marked `adagio', and both Katchen and even more so Serkin understand this as a really slow adagio. Gould made me think. Adagio in Brahms seems to vary in its meaning. The last section of the alto rhapsody is adagio but it must not be dragged, and one of the best performances I ever enjoyed of the slow movement of the violin concerto was by Kremer who took a very flowing tempo indeed. Again the first E major from op 116 (also adagio) is given a fanciful interpretation that absolutely delighted me, although I continue to admire the more normal manner of Kissin. The B flat minor is more low-key and and `romantic' than in Horowitz's typically alert reading that I shall always love, but I find I can take it either way. The great A major from op118 is the last piece here, and I was gratified to hear Gould handle the middle section in much the way I try to do it myself. He makes the repeat (non-negotiable in this instance) and at the second time round he brings out the lower melody - indeed throughout the whole recital his voicing of those very Brahmsian inner parts is a consistent pleasure. In the E flat minor, surely one of the greatest things in the whole literature of the piano, his performance is quite awesome, and nothing short of this will ever satisfy me again. My own idea of the left-hand figuration in the middle section is staccato with very little pedal, which is not how Gould does it. I haven't lost my hankering for that, but until I hear it done like that by a player of less ill repute than myself I shall have to take Gould as my point of reference.

`This nut is a genius' was Szell's famous summing-up of Gould. The overwhelming impact of these two discs is of sheer raw greatness. The recorded sound is really very good, and if you can put up with the liner-note you will be able to read what it has to say not only in French and German as well as English, but also in Italian. The music has to go on to a second disc, although it means that each disc contains only just over 40 minutes' worth each. If it had been 4 minutes each of this quality I would still have wanted the set.

These performances are really succesful. Glenn Gould is feel very good the atmosphere of Brahms' music. Still, Glenn Gould is a Canadian pianist as you know, so he has a character of a North World man. And Brahms already is a typic a noble man came from North Europe. So, their character is nearly same and Gould is bringing vert good the Brahms' somewhere heavy, cld and stormy but somewhere lyric and warm passages. Especially in Intermezzos. Gould's another Brahms recording, Piano Quintet with Montreal String Quartet, is very good, also. And the both recordings are highly recommended.

This review is primarily designed not for Gould aficionados, but for those who love Brahms piano music and enjoy great piano playing. Gould completists of which I am one (I have over 50 Gould CDs and a lot of LPs) love his original music conceptions and try to get most or all of his recordings and then decide whether that they find this or that interpretation of a given piece by Bach, Beethoven or Schoenberg convincing or not. But many true `Brahmins' and adepts of the romantic piano will miss a great recording of the XX century, if they discard Glenn Gould's 1960 sampler of Brahms intermezzi and ignore it in their wish lists.
This 2 CD set offers the outcome of two very different Gould's digressions to Brahms piano music. In 1960 he made a studio recording of 10 Intermezzi from Opp. 117, 118, 116, 76 (in September and November 1960). This is the content of CD 2 in this compilation. In February 1982 he returned to add the four ballades, Op. 10. Finally, on June 30 & July 1, 1982 he recorded both rhapsodies, Op. 79 - of one of his very last recordings: the ballades and the rhapsodies recorded in 1982 are available in this compilation on CD 1.
There is fairly little in common between these two CDs in this CD set, except for the name of the pianist. But was it really one and the same man? I doubt it. The 1960 sessions with 10 intermezzi reveal a perfect balance of the pianist's conception, dynamic markings and a gorgeous touch: Gould produces an unusually full-blooded and nuanced sound, with rich pedaling, dynamic shadings and long fermatas. His playing here is not only thought-of, but very natural - every note is a treasure. The 1982 sessions offer a more politically correct, artificial and distilled late-Gould sound - a la Gould's magnificent 6 Haydn Sonatas or Beethoven's Sonatas Op. 2: the main problem is that such an approach suits Brahms music worse than Haydn or Beethoven Op. 2. Besides, Gould's technique in 1982 deteriorated since 1960, and his individual accents, interesting as they are, mask the lack of virtuosity. Listening to some passages from the B minor rhapsody Op. 79 No. 1 or 2nd Ballade, Op. 10 No. 2, one cannot get rid of a really unpleasant feeling that Gould *could not* play them in a different way, even if he wished to. Given all this, I can rate Gould's experiments on CD 1 (1982 sessions) with some 4 stars, and am giving 5 stars (10 stars in mind) for the extraordinary sampler of 1960 intermezzi on CD 2.
Brahms intermezzi is my favorite piano music and I enjoy listening to them in many performances. I have a complete set of Brahms solo piano music with Katchen, large selections of intermezzi with Backhaus (both the pre-war and the post-war versions), Rubinstein, Gieseking, Gilels, Kempff, some pieces with Schnabel, Edwin Fischer, Richter, Elly Ney, Anda, Michelangeli, Vedernikov, Yudina, Sokolow etc. But the 10 intermezzi from Gould's 1960 sessions simply outshine the alternative versions for me.
A few words about the miniatures from this selection compared with some alternatives in their discography. Gould plays all three intermezzi from Op. 117: the first item, the E flat major intermezzo in a lullaby rhythmus is very popular, but other two pieces are not weaker. I admire the C sharp intermezzo Op 117 No. 3 with Gould: it is a strong dark piece which gets a congenial reading here. Gould also recorded Nos. 1, 2, 4 & 6 from 'six pieces, Op. 118'. I cannot express enough praise for Gould's rendering of Brahms' late masterpiece, intermezzo Op. 118 No. 6, written in the funereal tonality of E flat minor. This `Andante, largo e mesto' opens with an Orfeo-like dialogue of the left and right hands slightly reminding of Gluck or the E minor Romance from Beethoven's 4th Concerto: a sad right-hand theme played pp or p is immediately responded by menacing descending figurations in the left hand. Then this gloomy music is magically transformed into a heroic middle episode where both hands are going up for a short while and trying to develop new textures - as if protesting against the fate. But the battle is lost and the gloomy initial theme returns, to a dismal effect. One must both have a great soul and great stamina to play that: some pianists are excessively booming and appear rude, while other ones are unjustly hiding the left hand. I find Gieseking's reading of Op. 118 No. 6 too florid and mannered, and Backhaus (both in his 1932 and 1956 recordings) is too dry and emotionally restrained for my taste. Richter who plays it greatly is almost weeping in the last bars. Gould is sensitive but manlike, he holds the reins to the end. Every note in this recording is smart and every transition is logical, not a single false intonation. His sound, especially in the left hand, is very appealing, too.
On the 1982 CD, I would first of all recommend the 4th Ballade in B major, Op. 10 No. 4, where Gould's approach and his tempi make most sense, and the 2nd Rhapsody in G minor, Op. 79, No. 2 - it sounds unconventional and fresh. I don't want to spread any critical comments about the playing of one of my favorite pianists in other pieces on CD 1 or advise any alternatives. I simply suggest that the art of such a great musician who could make the 1960 recordings of intermezzi deserves that you buy and listen to his later Brahms recordings yourself.

Highly recommended. A must for all who love Brahms.

I understand perfectly why so many people cannot pick up with Gould's way of performing these pieces. Well, I love them, I just can't help loving them. But I would like to tell you, in the hope that it might be useful to you all, to those who love GG as well and to those who detest him, that a record of the Ballades was found in Thomas Bernhard's house soon after his death. Evident signs of much use were detected. It is just strange, because so many people had expected to find the Goldberg Variations instead. Please forgive me if I indulge myself to a recommendation. Michel Schneider's Glenn Gould, piano solo. I think that some of you will find the book fascinating. By the way, for Schneider, the best recordings by Gould are Brahms's Intermezzi, and above all, the Piano Concerto in D minor.

Sometimes I have to go back and delete a review that I later realize came out completely wrong. I originally found Gould too quirky in his Brahms playing, but on later returning to this unique disc, I fell under its spell. I have to agree with David Bryson that there is no other Brahms piano recital like it.

Glenn Gould won universal acclaim for his Bach as ayoung man, followed by a quarter century of controversy. There was hardly a middle position in the love-him-or-hate-him debate during Gould's lifetime. I imagine he would loathe the patina of nostaliga in which he's now covered, but his style -- quirky, willful, sometimes abrasive, but glittering in its brilliance -- is on full display here. I remember the release of the late Intermezzi from the Sixties, a time when it appeared that one of the world's most outspoken anti-Romantics was making a major concession.

Gould's touch is still Bachian in its detached clarity. He can be tender, as in the lovely Ballade #1, but generally he wants to emphasize counterpoint over melodic reveries. What wins the listener over is Gould's refined originality -- he plays every piece without regard for any preceding tradition. Except for Martha Argerich and Maurizio Pollini, it's hard to think of a pianist today who has a style that is so immediately recognizable.

Often I've found Gould to be too aggressive and yet aloof, too insistent on his way and nobody else's. The way he halts and stutters in simple melodic lines (e.g., in the Op. 117 no. 1 Intermezzo) grows into a bit of a mannerism. That said, this is hypnotic music-making, a rapt traversal that stands as one of a kind.