Alan Jacobs at the Hedgehog Review:
My friend Elizabeth Corey, a pianist as well as a political philosopher, tells me, “You can’t unhear Gould.” A simple but important statement. The music of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould (1932–1982) is so distinctive, so memorable, even today so surprising, that once experienced, it stays in your mind and can easily become the frame of reference by which you evaluate other pianists.
This is true even when you think someone else plays certain pieces of music better than Gould does. If I could listen to only one pianist play Bach, it would be Murray Perahia, not Gould. But when I first heard Perahia’s Bach, I had been listening to Gould’s Bach for a quarter of a century, so that for every minute in which I am lost in Perahia’s playing, there is a second in which I think, Hmmm, Gould wouldn’t have played it that way. And even when I say that to praise Perahia, which is usually the case, Gould remains the benchmark for my judgments. This is equally true when I listen to András Schiff or Jeremy Denk.
more here.
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