Bach - The Well Tempered Clavier Bks 1 & 2 - Glenn Gould

One should not call a recording `epoch-making' unless it really marks some kind of epoch, but Gould's `48' is an epoch-making issue in the proper rigour of the term. What Gould achieved was to restore the art of playing Bach on the piano to full respectability after the over-long dominance of the purist school that insisted on the harpsichord. For me, Gould's career marks another kind of epoch too, the kind that can only be made by a player of exceptional genius and individuality.



Gould must surely have been one of the greatest players who ever laid a hand on the instrument. Even in an era of outstanding technical accomplishment, the extraordinary control and evenness of his touch and the phenomenal precision of his ornamentation mark him out to this day, 20 years and more after his abrupt demise at the age of not quite 50. He played a lot more than Bach, and his playing of Brahms or Ravel is not at all like his Bach-playing, but it is probably the latter that he will always be most associated with. There is a real frisson about this set from the very first bar - a sense of occasion, although the recordings here were not done on one occasion but span a period of 10 years. Book 1 was recorded in New York between 1962 and 1965; the first 16 numbers in Book 2 were done in the same New York studio between 1966 and 1969, the balance of the set at a new location in Toronto in 1971. The recorded sound in Book 2 is slightly fuller and richer, and at a slightly higher volume-level, than that in Book 1, but I noticed no significant difference in sound when the locus shifted to Canada. All four discs are distinguished by admirable clarity, which is what this playing demands - I should not be surprised to learn that Gould made no use of the pedals from start to finish.



If you have read a certain amount regarding supposed eccentricity in Gould's playing, I should say forget it. I can think of a couple of things he did that would fall into that category, but nothing here in the 48, and, really, not much elsewhere either. What you will certainly find is individuality and boldness, and I for one just lap it up. The very first prelude is famous, with the arpeggios given half legato and half staccato, and the second prelude has a relentless marching quality that I find riveting. He is not afraid, to say the least of it, to take tempi that are sometimes unusually slow (say in the F minor prelude from Book 1) but more often exceptionally fast, as in both the G major prelude and fugue in Book 2. His range of dynamics is not in fact particularly wide, but it is subtly inflected, and indeed it is an interesting question how he manages to suggest so much variety in the tone without resorting to obvious devices and in particular with little or no deployment of the pedals. There is very little tempo rubato either, but there is the occasional special effect. One such that I noticed in particular was a clever suggestion in the second F# minor prelude of a particular harpsichord stop that I had recently thought he over-used in his harpsichord performance of Handel's first 4 suites. He seems to have liked that particular effect, and it makes a brilliant impact used just once here.



I go further than just recommending this set to all lovers of Bach, I would say that whatever other accounts you may own you should not be without this one. Take no notice whatsoever of a certain type of commentary that one comes across now and then, the kind that could be paraphrased as `Mr Gould's playing lacks a certain quality of averageness' or `Mr Gould has failed to establish a common denominator with players possessed of less than one-tenth of his genius or insight'. This is Bach's 48, it contains some of the greatest music ever put on paper, it deserves and cries out for genius in its interpretation, and you will find that in a particularly undiluted form here.



Enjoy and Seed!!