Glenn Gould's Bach

Glenn Gould’s Bach – I know that some people have an allergic reaction to the way Glenn Gould plays Bach, much as others are passionate devotees – which is ultimately what I am. Having said that, I think it’s quite mad to insist on listening only to Gould’s interpretation of Bach’s keyboard music, given what wonderful recordings are around, both on the modern piano and early instruments.

What no-one can doubt is the perfection of Gould’s technical command. Apparently he never needed to “practice,” in the way most pianists understand that word,  once he'd established his technique at a very young age, and I don't think you'll hear a single note in his recordings which doesn't come out in exactly the way it was intended. It's sometimes said that while Gould sings along, his playing doesn't sing. Gould’s staccato approach supports this view - even though that approach has its own meaningful and expressive power. But Gould could certainly make the piano sing when he wanted to: as a little example, listen to the perfect singing phrasing in this two-part invention: https://youtu.be/R2M-wEvs1E4?si=ctGb64Mz2NtcJ3M7

What I love about Gould’s playing is the one ingredient that is indispensable to interpretive performers: character. Whereas some seem to think Gould's is a ‘mechanistic’ approach, listening to Gould playing Bach is actually an intensely human experience. I hear a fidgety, nervous, irrepressible intensity and a real and joyful encounter with the phenomenon of Bach’s music, and the singing along only adds to the quirky and affecting humanity. So I don't believe that we only hear Gould and not Bach in his performances, as is often claimed. There are of course cases where the personality of the performer obscures the character of the music, and I can certainly hear why some listeners place Gould’s performances of Bach in this category. But to me his performances stay just the right side of the cliff down which truly egocentric performers tumble, those performers who in making a piece of music serve their own ends lose sight of its true dimensions. To my mind it is on that narrow edge that many of the most meaningful performances of music live. There is more to be said, one day, about this phenomenon of what happens when a performer brings their own character and life history to a piece in “interpreting” it: this structure has surprisingly far-reaching philosophical parallels.