Matteo Pagliari: A New Book On Glenn Gould

I don't much appreciate Busoni's piano transcriptions of Bach's organ works.

Carlos, have you "asked" Glenn what he thinks about them and if he has never performed them?

Boesendorfer wrote:

I do not much appreciate Busoni's piano transcriptions of Bach's organ works. Carlos, have you "asked" Glenn what he thinks about them and if he has never performed them?

There are no traces of performances of Busoni's music, neither original nor transcribed by other authors, by Glenn Gould. Aside from this, the interview device was used to pleasantly address topics for which testimony exists in the bibliography, in correspondence, and in the numerous articles written by Gould during his lifetime. Since there is no source regarding GG's statements on Busoni's transcriptions, I would not have been able to deal with the subject, because I would have had to invent the answer(s), which was not in the spirit of my book.

Curiosity: does it make more sense to assume that Busoni's transcriptions were not very well known to Gould's generation, or rather, that they were radically antithetical to his aesthetic sense? I mean: can we consider Busoni a "romantic" when facing Bach and Gould, whereas the latter is a kind of post-philologist?

I am sure that Gould was well acquainted with Busoni's works and, moreover, many pianists contemporary to him played them in their recitals (Horowitz, for one, for example). In reality, I simply believe, given his opinions on Bach and, conversely, on Romantic pianists/composers, that there was nothing further from his conception of performing any page of Bach transcribed by Busoni.

Carlos, don't you find that in his own way he .... "rewrote"....? ... Bach....

Tap wrote:

Carlos, don't you find that in his own way he .... "rewrote"....? ... Bach....

Well without a doubt; but isn't that what every performer does with every page they play? Of course, depending on the performers, the results are very different from one another; but a transcription is another thing, if that was the reason for your question...

The first steps of «Invenzione a due voci». Gian Paolo Minardi's review in today's Gazzetta di Parma.