Through the Night

[kernelbogey]

28.1.25 05:44 AM
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Concerto no 26 in D major, K.537 'Coronation'
Christian Ihle Hadland (piano), Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Pietari Inkinen (conductor)

There was a curious extraneous noise in this performance - only during passages in which the piano was playing. A knocking noise, sometimes in time with the music, sometimes not. In the end I decided that a microphone had been placed in such a way as to pick up the soloist's pedalling. Anyone else notice this? Any pianists' views?

[Aotearoa]

It's Through the Day for me in NZ and Shea and Swain are impeccable pronouncers of the foreign word - commendable

[Ein Heldenleben]

28.1.25 05:44 AM
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Concerto no 26 in D major, K.537 'Coronation'
Christian Ihle Hadland (piano), Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Pietari Inkinen (conductor)

There was a curious extraneous noise in this performance - only during passages in which the piano was playing. A knocking noise, sometimes in time with the music, sometimes not. In the end I decided that a microphone had been placed in such a way as to pick up the soloist's pedalling. Anyone else notice this? Any pianists' views?

It’s probably pedal related -as it seems to be happening from time to time on chords and not during scales ( a bit of a pedalling no-no in Mozart) . The piano is closely miked . It could be a noisy pedal or even the sound of the dampers coming off the strings as the pedal is depressed. . Pedalling isn’t always in time with the music ..it’s a bit of a dark art really. Went to see Elizabeth Brauss play Mozart No . 9 on Thursday and was amazed how much she used the pedal - half bars , even every crotchet. There even seemed to be a bit of half pedalling. What’s superb pianist she is .

PS Yep the noise is pervasive in the Andante where you’d expect to get more pedalling . It’s in time with the harmonic changes and you can hear the pedal release and damper move during the scale/decoration passages. A shame really as it’s a nice performance.
Also a tremendous cougher in the audience. Who would be a concert pianist ?

[kernelbogey]

It’s probably pedal related -as it seems to be happening from time to time on chords and not during scales ( a bit of a pedalling no-no in Mozart)...
PS Yep the noise is pervasive in the Andante where you’d expect to get more pedalling ... It’s in time with the harmonic changes and you can hear the pedal release and damper move during the scale/decoration passages. A shame really as it’s a nice performance.....

Many thanks, EH. It's only the second time I've heard a TTN performance that wasn't quite the full shilling technically.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Many thanks, EH. It's only the second time I've heard a TTN performance that wasn't quite the full shilling technically.

To be honest the pedal shouldn’t be audible unless the microphones are placed really close to it or the dampers. It’s maybe a tiny fault on the piano possibly the rods that connect the pedal to the rest of the mechanism. I think technicians carry piano pedal grease for squeaks as a matter of course. It’s possible it wasn’t even audible to the player.
As for technical faults live recordings tend to be full of them but most “normal “ people don’t notice them especially on TV.

[kernelbogey]

In TTN 8.2.25 at 0.55.30
A 1954 recording of Glen Gould playing J S Bach: Goldberg Variations
His 'first public performance'. of the Variations in June 1954, according to Penny Gore's back-announcement. It's a Canadian Broadasting recording which seems to have avoided, as far as I could tell, picking up any humming etc from GG. No applause at the end. About 43 minutes; he seems to avoid (nearly?) all the repeats one usually hears in modern performances. (I haven't listened to the commercial recording recently.)

[AuntDaisy]

In TTN 8.2.25 at 0.55.30
A 1954 recording of Glen Gould playing J S Bach: Goldberg Variations
His 'first public performance'. of the Variations in June 1954, according to Penny Gore's back-announcement. It's a Canadian Broadasting recording which seems to have avoided, as far as I could tell, picking up any humming etc from GG. No applause at the end. About 43 minutes; he seems to avoid (nearly?) all the repeats one usually hears in modern performances. (I haven't listened to the commercial recording recently.)

Thanks kernelbogey.

According to a 2008 TTN, it was "recorded at a radio broadcast for CBC in Toronto on 21 June 1954" (Notturno listing.) The Norwegian Notturno listing added "Platenummer: CACBC Radio PSCD 20306".
So I think it's available on this "The Young Maverick" CD set, the booklet confirms the 21/6/1954 date.

Susan Sharpe commented:
"First, one of the greatest masterpieces ever written for the keyboard, Bach's Goldberg Variations. The pianist is the idiosyncratic Glenn Gould, playing for a radio broadcast for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in June 1954, so the year before he made his classic recording of the variations. The work was published in 1742; Bach wrote only one other set of variations, but, as Glenn Gould himself said, that didn't stop him creating an edifice of previously unequalled magnitude.
...
Bach's Goldberg Variations - "music which observes neither end nor beginning, with neither real climax nor real resolution. Music which, like Baudelaire's lovers, rests lightly on the wings of the unchecked wind" - the words of the pianist Glenn Gould who was playing the variations there in a CBC radio broadcast from June 1954."

It's interesting that Susan Sharpe was more expansive than Peny Gore and that the 2008 TTN also had a complete performance of The Golden Cockerel - we don't often get whole operas these days.

[kernelbogey]

Impressive research, Auntie! I'm grateful. I've become a bit of a Goldberg obsessive....

[AuntDaisy]

Impressive research, Auntie! I'm grateful. I've become a bit of a Goldberg obsessive....

Those "The Young Maverick" CDs are currently ~£7 (inc. postage) secondhand on Amazon and far too tempting.

[vinteuil]

Those "The Young Maverick" CDs are currently ~£7 (inc. postage) secondhand on Amazon and far too tempting.

... have already been tempted : hope I got my order in quickly enuff!

.

[Pulcinella]

... have already been tempted : hope I got my order in quickly enuff!

.

Just found and saved for streaming later.
What a slow Aria compared to the commercial recording (just sampled).

[kernelbogey]

Those "The Young Maverick" CDs are currently ~£7 (inc. postage) secondhand on Amazon and far too tempting.

Alas I am Amazon-phobic....

[AuntDaisy]

Alas I am Amazon-phobic....

It's a difficult choice.

Would eBay be okay? Momox are also selling their CDs there for ~£7 (& free postage).
Although, I think, vinteuil may have snaffled the penultimate ones...

[Serial_Apologist]

Impressive research, Auntie! I'm grateful. I've become a bit of a Goldberg obsessive....

If you like that, you might also be interested in Gould's equally unforced interpretation of Schoenberg's Suite Op 25, a work which I have long thought to be the modern counterpart of the Goldbergs - the first piece ever to be based on a single 12-tone row. And it really does never resolve - unlike Bach's masterpiece, which so much anticipated it! One of the variations always reminds me of the Bach two-part inventions I learned to play while at school.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tkfiqUtXRE

[kernelbogey]

It's a difficult choice.

Would eBay be okay? Momox are also selling their CDs there for ~£7 (& free postage).
Although, I think, vinteuil may have snaffled the penultimate ones...

Thanks for that link, Aunt Daisy: bought it!