Glenn Gould - The Composer

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1. Lieberson Madrigal I. Chorale

2. Lieberson Madrigal: II. Recitativ

3. Lieberson Madrigal: III. Fuga

4. Lieberson Madrigal: IV. Chorale

5. String Quartet, Op. 1

6. Two Pieces For Piano: No. 1

7. Two Pieces For Piano: No. 2

8. Sonata For Bassoon And Piano: I. Movement

9. Sonata For Bassoon And Piano: II. Movement

10. Sonata For Bassoon And Piano: III. Movement

11. Piano Sonata (unfinished): I. Movement

12. Piano Sonata (unfinished): II. Movement

13. "So You Want To Write A Fugue?" for 4 Voices And String Quartet In 1949, at the age of 17, Glenn Gould composed a sonata for bassoon and piano which is full of interest and promise. There are clear signs of familiarity with progressive tendencies (Hindemith more prominent than Schoenberg) and an ability to put those tendencies to work in efficiently-organized structures. All the more depressing, then, that the remaining instrumental compositions recorded here, all of which date from the early 1950s, fail to build on these worthy foundations. If the early 1950s were the very years in which Gould discovered that his true vocation was as a creative performer, then depression may be misplaced—as misplaced, that is, as the enthusiasm that has led to these recordings. I can find nothing in the two piano pieces and the unfinished Piano Sonata, or in the single-movement, 35-minute String Quartet, to encourage repeated listenings. Even the occasional hint of models—Berg's Op. 1 in Gould's own Piano Sonata, a range of motives linking late Beethoven with early Schoenberg in the Quartet—is sporadic, and merely underlines the gulf between the echoer and the echoed. It's the problems Gould had in organizing his ideas into effective musical forms which are most apparent, rather than any inherent weaknesses in the ideas themselves. But he also seems to have had little interest in texture. Even his piano writing can be surprisingly stodgy, and his use of tremolo to provide some much-needed variety in the String Quartet is simply inept. Again, it's the Bassoon Sonata, with its neatly balanced textural oppositions, that provides most evidence of genuine inventiveness. The gulf between these earnest teenage efforts and the two lighthearted vocal pieces from ten years later could hardly be greater. Lieberson Madrigal is a tribute to Goddard Lieberson, the celebrated President of CBS Records, and in this, as in So you want to write a Fugue?, Gould is an accomplished mimic of baroque and classical styles. Although these performances are not ideally effortless, they still raise a smile. The recordings of the instrumental pieces suffer from excessive reverberation—especially at the end of the Quartet. Clearly, you will need to be a devotee of Gould in all his uniquely varied guises to go for this disc. A.W. - Gramophone, November 1992 FLAC Check Comments