Well of all the unusual things to see on late night German television, I just caught 1959 black-and-white of Glenn Gould in the studio recording Bach's Italian Concertos. It was Gould at his foot-stamping sing-along best. But the really interesting thing was the studio producer, who by the end of the half hour segment had fully impressed upon me his lack of knowledge of classical music, and even of the artist himself, whom he patronized as a one-dimensional country hick from Canada who just happened to have some musical talent up his sleeves which was luckily recognized by Columbia records. While Gould was busy churning out a recording that we still listen to today this twit was talking loudly with one of the sound engineers about planting petunias. I swear. And at the end of it all there was this shot of Gould listening to a playback of one of his recordings--who knows what complex musical thoughts were going on, unspoken, in his head--and the producer had the nerve to pronounce, congratulatorily, "good tempo." What kind of remark is "good tempo" when made to the arguably best Bach interpreter of the 20th century?
Some things just don't change I guess.
Posted by Alan at October 23, 2002 01:22 AM