Search - Grieg, Bizet, Gould :: Glenn Gould's First Recordings of Grieg & Bizet

The AMAZING mister Gould...

Sébastien Melmoth | Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS | 01/01/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

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From 1971, these recordings represent some of the most astounding repertoire selections made by the amazing Mr. Gould.



GG was distantly related to Grieg, so perhaps his decision to play his relative's rarely-heard e-minor Sonata [~:30mins] is not so very strange. However, Gould's championship of Bizet's recherché set of Variations Chromatiques remains spectacularly eccentric--and wonderful!



Bizet--(who was a very talented pianist)--liked playing Beethoven's sets of variations, and certainly the Variations Chromatiques aspire to the Master's cunning innovation and charming originality. Bizet's set consists of a theme, fourteen variations (7 in c-minor; 7 in C-major), and a coda. [~:15mins]



As a byzantine pièce de résistance Gould suavely provides us with an outrageous reading of Bizet's Nocturne in F-major--(of all things [!])--made all the more infuriating by the fact that GG wouldn't touch a key to give us a Chopin nocturne, not to mention one of Debussy nor Fauré: impudent genius!



Avoir une manière originale de faire.



See too:

Glenn Gould Edition: Chopin / Mendelssohn / Scriabin / Prokofiev

Grieg, Bizet, Sibelius: Piano Works

Bizet: The Complete Piano Works

Georges Bizet: Intégrale de l'oeuvre pour piano

Stephen Heller: Late Piano Works

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