Glenn Gould plays Bach and hums

I bought two CDs of Glenn Gould playing Johann Sebastian Bach: Goldberg Variations (1981) and The Art of the Fugue. He’s a brilliant pianist and he really rocks the Johann Sebastian Bach but I sometimes wish he had shut up during the recording sessions. I don’t hear it during the organ fugues but his off-tune humming comes through on many of the piano tracks. In some places it’s cute but mostly it evokes jittery images of Frankenstein hunched over his work in one of his mad genius fits. Excellent albums.

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This entry was posted on August 13, 2007 at 5:14 pm and is filed under Creamy Filling, Torque. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Glenn Gould plays Bach and hums”

mike Says:
August 14, 2007 at 7:34 am
Ha! Sounds classic! Do you think they meant leave it in or it was him humming as he quietly played? Old recording i am guessing. . .
eliz. Says:
August 17, 2007 at 7:22 pm
I don’t classify myself as an expert on Glenn Gould (far from it), but it is pretty much a given that if you buy one of his recordings, you’ll get him humming on it. If you’re interested in him, you might rent “32 Short Films about Glenn Gould”. He was something else.
Kamila Says:
August 24, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Yes, many people get weirded out by his singing…but his voice soothes me…I wouldn’t ever separate his voice from the piano recordings!