Added: 4 years ago
From: stephenykevin
Views: 175,086
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:

All Comments (355)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • I have goosebumps and I ain't cold either!

  • Gentlemen, this...is love.

  • thank you glenn

  • love the humming

  • este hombre entiende la musica a un nivel muy elevado

  • Glenn has beautiful piano-hands.Remarkable playing, jewish genious.

  • I agree with Gould. This is perhaps the most moving music ever composed by the greatest composer of all time.

  • What exactly did Gould do to alter the piano? Does anyone know if any pianomaker has replicated this?

  • 0:00 - 0:22 what the fuck is wrong with his hand, is he retarded ?

  • @TheLizardKing94 You dont have to repeat, my friend.

  • @75metteholm if you were someone with a little bit of IQ you should see that it was written exactly at the same time, so you should consider that it's a lag (Y)

  • @TheLizardKing94 ...naah, Glenn play that line with only one hand -more easy- for a retarded like you.

  • @rikibitta Yes,I can see that he play that line with one hand, but its not because you play only with one hand that you should do a fucking stupid choreography with the other. Fuck you.

  • @TheLizardKing94: He's playing (flawlessly) some of the most beautiful music ever written. There's absolutely nothing wrong (just right) with his hand.

  • @turingtape I admite he plays it very good, but i still think i looks like a retarded

  • @TheLizardKing94 I ask me who is retatded (but I don't find)

  • Comment removed

  • Ce qu'il ya de mieux pour s'endormir dans la sérénité, BACH a composé cette oeuvre pour Glenn GOULD, mais il ne le savait pas à moins que !!

  • 0:00 - 9:37 Perfecto! <3

  • Listen to this song about 950 times, then you might understand it.

  • How ironic. An incomplete recording of Gould's performance of an incomplete fugue... There's about three minutes missing from the end.

  • darn. thought i'm not that modern. but i'm just a visual pop culture child after all...

    lost my concentration between 7 and 8. (as i really think it's not "that bad" with me in general) it seems really hard to make our times ready for this music.

  • @odolany Oh please. Bach has been admired for centuries. Yes, it can be argued that Bach isn't heard on mainstream radio or whatever. Still, many people enjoy Bach. "Our time" is just as connected with the "last", there isn't much difference. Even back then, Steve Allen railed on rock music.

  • @fenderbender92 didn't get the last sentence at all, but i'll check wiki ;).

    in a way i wasn't referring to 'admiration' but more to 'enjoyment'. not the process of evaluating but simply connecting to the music. (and that i consider a more shallow field - just psychology no philosophy here). all the matters of attention or perception of time - this mind qualities change in more less one direction together with technological development. staying in focus will get obscure but this music needs it.

  • @odolany I enjoy this music immensely and so do many other people.

  • He 's actually singing in this video.

  • wow....

  • What is he playing in this video? Why is it called Art of fugue(Contrapunctus XIV) ?

  • Glenn Gould = music = love

  • Gould had a secret harpsichord that had no legs. Yeah. He would lay down and play it all the time. Sometimes with his nose, too.

  • Nature embodied in music. Thanks for Johann & Glenn!

  • This is possibly one of the utmost pieces ever written where you can feel despair yet hope, sadness yet joy and love; sins seem to be forgiven and time to stop.

    Thank you Bach and Glenn.

  • love him too

  • I love Glenn so, so, much..

  • What unique

  • If I could hear how any composer would have been different in a different time period, I would be most interested in hearing Bach grow up in Europe in the early nineteenth century with contemporary composers Chopin, Liszt, and Mendelssohn (assuming, of course, that everyone was still able to study the music of Bach as we know it :] )

  • I have never felt annyed by Gould's singing. In the contrary i think of it as an element integrated to his performance which is almost out of this world. His playing is filled with passion and love for Bach's music and i find it quite natural for him that he is dedicated body and soul when he plays that divine music.

  • Art of Fugue, Unfinished Fugue's ending:

    i1105 . photobucket . com / albums / h352 / artoffugueend / artoffugue_ending . jpg

  • @mtv565 can you repost the link, it didn't work for me (after I deleted the extra spaces). Who's composed this particular completion?

  • @mezzoforte84 You copy and paste the URL onto your browser, before you press enter or "go", you delete away the spaces. Be careful not to delete the slashes or dots, else it will not work. I tried it just now, it worked.

    this completion is the most convincing and I suspect the lost page of Art of Fugue has been found!

  • @mtv565 thank you. and I am going to try it out. thanks. But it would be nice if you could find the attribution. Moreover, as I recall, didn't his son write on the manuscript that the composer has died? That said, I would never suggest that some Bach-crazed scholar could not deduce the ending which (assuming) was in Bach's head.

  • If you listen closely, you can hear him humming

  • @EricHaverpowell If you listen closely, you can hear God.

  • @pila406 "you can hear God"

    To hell with Gawd, I'm here for the music.

  • @MucusFelidae It was a joke. A reply to someone who said: "If you listen closely, you can hear him humming".

  • @EricHaverpowell yes actually gould was infamous for this, it really irritated my conductors and towards the end of his life no one would even hire him and he found it very hard to make recordings because record companies were also very annoyed at this. he said he did this starting as a boy because his mother told him as a boy to "sing everything that he played". he also said that he would only humm at the parts where the piano failed to play to music as he intended

  • Glenn Gould made Baroque music romantic music without changing the pieces soul.

  • I love how he moves... It's quite refreshing the great Player of Bach break that silly tradition of being sitting stone still while playing the most expressive music.

  • life is not to be understood

  • @brunoepbm Nice comment I engraved that on my brain the moment i read it! :)

  • While I don't like to use superlatives and hyperbole when it comes to JSB, I do love his music simply because of the Baroque tonality and superb structure, which is sadly missed in contemporary music. And GG's interpretations are among the best.

  • I enjoyed it but found the humming kind of distracting, I couldn't really concentrate :( is anyone able to explain why he does that?

  • @kiranbarhey

    Gould always hummed when he played, although it's more evident here than usual. Gould's mother (his first piano teacher) encouraged him to do this. Many of us who love Gould enjoy his humming and other quirks.  Not for nothing is he the most documented classical pianist of the 20thc. Gould's talent was beyond cosmic.

  • Resonance frequency of the universe = collective force of Bach's music

  • Removing the humming would be like removing on of the voices Bach wrote.

  • @stethoscanomaly 'insert reply disparaging Justin Bieber'

  • @stethoscanomaly  Somewhat ironic.

  • Comment removed

  • @stethoscanomaly oh bravo!!! well said. yes yes. etc etc . . .

  • @stethoscanomaly Music is not about intellectual superiority of any kind, whoever your favorite composer or band may be. If that's the way you feel about music, I can only feel sorry for you. What sort of people listen to which kind of music for what reason is simply insignificant. Their intellectual capacities, if any exist, are equally insignificant. If intelligent people do listen to Bach, they do so because they love Bach, not because they're trying to appear intelligent.

  • I miss you glenn..

  • thank you bach. thank you gould. i love you. i miss you..

  • WHEN WILL MANKIND LEARN!

  • @iggypopster2 Everything we learn in life and science is totally contradictory to dog's existence? I must be schizophrenic.

  • Do you have the continuation of this video (i.e. including the third subject?)

  • @botetix it's in the side menu

  • @iggypopster2 Your view of Christianity is skewed. . Sorry about that.

  • When Bach was composing this, he had just had his eyes operated by a quack surgeon. As a result of this his eyes were rotting away in his head, his blood was going septic, his internal organs were failing and the bacteria were creeping down the optic nerve into his brain. The pain was unspeakable. Try sticking a bunch of toothpicks in your eyes and setting fire to them. Then you'll have some idea. Still, he composed this. What would you have composed?

  • @jannevellamo "When Bach was composing this, he had just had his eyes operated by a quack surgeon..."

    *chuckle*

    In 1750, there were nothing *but* quack surgeons.

    "... the bacteria were creeping down the optic nerve into his brain..."

    If you'll forgive my pedantry, the point at which the bacteria actually reach the brain would not in itself be painful, as there are no sensory nerves in the brain. You can't have a "brain-ache" in the sense that you can have a stomach-ache.

  • @polymath7 By modern standards, you're absolutely correct. The best surgeons at the time, however, did not have to skip from one country to another to avoid prosecution, unlike this particular specimen. That spells QUACK, even in 1750.

    As for the brain, does a meningitis patient have a headache? Yes. A rotting brain is a rotting brain, but mercifully the end is very near, once the bacteria get that far. I would assume the cerebral pressure increase killed him in hours.

  • @jannevellamo Hope your wrong, he didnt deserve that.

  • @caddencadden I wish I were wrong, but that's what happened. A gruesome way to go for a great soul. Then again, stuff like this was happening all over the place at the time. An easy, painless death was a rarity.

  • @jannevellamo Excuse my ignorance, but how exactly do bacteria creep along nerves?

  • @SanctumZero Very slowly. Since we're talking about the eyes here, the shortest route to the brain is the optic nerve. You can try it yourself, if you don't believe me. All you have to do is stick some holes in your eyes with a rusty needle and cover the wounds with something organic, such as milk and horse manure. I guarantee positive results in a couple of days, assuming you don't use antibiotics. Of course, antibiotics are for wusses. I also suggest making an educational YT video of this.

  • Gould is the perfect performer for JS Bach on the piano.

  • @iggypopster2

    I agree that GG's musical gifts were prodigious, but he was not a drunk. In fact, he called himself "alcoholically abstemious."

  • tocando con el corazon

  • i don't understand his left hand movement in the beginning. perhaps it is for rhythmic purposes in order to properly designate the timing of the next note; however, if it is for expressive purposes, it is illusion. The "one note" crescendo and decrescendo cannot exist, though, the listener may perceive it when watching his hand movements. Without video, it just sounds like a few properly timed, thematic notes. functional, yet honestly expressionless.

  • @tedgoh Maybe hes not moving his left hand for you and for all those who listening. It's for himself.

  • @tedgoh I doubt GG would come down and have an intreview and discuss such a complicated piece after he retired and agree to be filmed and actually care for "expressive purposes". we're just lucky we have this video. Personally I think gg wasn't in the room when he played that, he was in a different Dimension like Zoltan puts it.

  • Comment removed

  • Bach didn't finish it because, had he done so, it would have been perfect. He was too modest, and probably afraid, to touch perfection itself. Had he finished it, it would have been the most perfect work of art ever created. It is what it is. It's as near perfection as possible without being perfect.

  • When it concerns Bach's Keyboard works, Glenn Gould is the true master.  No-one else can match his outstanding intellect and interpretation of Bach.

  • Endless Cosmos, Eternity, God, BACH.

  • music and performance of the Archangels

  • However,It is confusing. It was in the 16th Sony Music Enter.Inc CDno.SMK87759 in that.

    Where is DVD? ??No.???

  • It is wonderful.

    Thank you.

    Though it is desirous ..this.. ..DVD... Please teach the number if you understand. Thank you very much.

  • 5:53

  • I hear how Gould was in love with Bach's music, possibly more than Bach himself.

  • Unmatched performance. The clarity of the voices, the pureness in the interpretation of the theme, the overall structure, everything is just a whole of pure perfection.

  • I'm not a religious man, but this is the moment man, through Bach and Gould, reached out and exposed a glimpse of the force guiding the Universe.

  • Probably one of the most profound musical interpretations ever.

  • I think that the point of Gould's performance here is to show an artist's relationship to his art. His informal dress and manner suggest this. The intention does not seem to be to present a concert version of the piece (Gould had certainly done this many times), but to show how he loved to play the music. This was probably done by CBC, which has a history of doing documentary style presentations of Canadian artists.

  • Where is the third subject? I want B A C H!

  • he has the movements of a great shinning solar flair

  • Love seeing some of the brain dead 13 year old commenters dissing Gould who've had a few piano classes and think they are experts. Shut up brats and behold a master musician. Idiots.

  • @007animefan007 Just listen then, and learn.

  • We should have connected some wires to his body attached to a mechanical->electrical converter. I'm sure we could have solved the energy crisis. Jeez.

  • ...estratosfèric, sensacional, còsmic, extraordinari, sublim, diví

  • @mandril1970 ;D

  • @stephenykevin En mi humilde opinión es una falta de respeto "linkear" esta interpretación de Gould del Arte de la Fuga con un vídeo de música mediocre.

  • wtf is he doing with his left hand....i mean, its not theater...

  • @madmax123ization Gould would get so into the music he played, that he could not help but to conduct his own performances.

  • @JupiterIV

    My impression is that he is so egoless that his own performance becomes something other than his own and something that should be conducted. Likewise, when he sings along his own performance it has become something outside of himself so that he can't help but commit himself to it not as the performer exactly but as somebody who just appreciates the music. That's how I take it anyway. He's definitely one of the most extraordinary individuals of all time.

  • Comment removed

  • @aakurara I mean when he hums along his own performance.

  • @madmax123ization

    Who gives a fuck?

    What are you doing with YOUR left hand...

  • @faraz1729

    I love this reply on madmax's coment

  • @faraz1729

    great reply to madmax

  • @faraz1729  Brilliant.

  • @madmax123ization That's when he became both conductor, and interpreter.

  • ¡Claro!...Este es el verdadero testamento de Bach.Inconcluso,aunque por alguna razon se terminase pero no es lo mismo.

    Gould,interpreto a Bach al piano-forte como nadie.Talento,sensibilidad y poesia.

    Por lo matematico,perfecto y a la vez humano,prefiero a Bach interpretado al clave,si bien Gould,no utiliza el pedal,porque es cierto que obscureceria su musica.

    Tan grande es su musica y el hecho musical que admite variaciones...W.Carlos,imcluso Procul Harum o el jazz.

    Bach es el padre de la musica

  • Bach es Bach como Dios es Dios.

  • I don't like glenn dould performances of Bach... they are too pianistic... he play bach as a chopin...

  • @massimiliano123123 I know it sounds stupid but Bach is Bach. You couldn't murder him if you played it on a hurdy-gurdy!

  • @IpsaPaphum Completely untrue. Bach is not Bach. For example, the Toscanini orchestrations are garbage as is Wendy Carlos' "Switched on Bach". I'm NOT talking "original instrumentation": a lot of that is garbage, as are pious Americans slaughtering chorales.

    All that garbage is garbage because it refuses to acknowledge Bach's intentions and engages in a fanciful frolic with the mere notes on some derivative score.

  • @massimiliano123123 Chacun a son gout, but I think Bach would have preferred the modern pianoforte. Gould is "pianistic" only in the sense that he uses the volume and pitch range of the piano. He never used pedals to my knowledge because they would only obscure the music. His playing (esp. articulation) manifests none of the barbaric destructiveness of most modern classical musicians, whose performances sound like a bear being pursued by a brass band that's eager to get the sacrifice over with.

  • @massimiliano123123 Nothing could be further from the truth. Gould didn't even like Chopin. This piece is flowing with perfect time. Chopin is meant to be played more rubato.

    Gould is speaking from his soul here, you just have to have the ears to hear him.

  • The patience with which this music was written and interpreted by Gould could only have been possible through a profound and heightened spiritual awareness

  • Good god!! What is this sublime piece of music, I'm assuming it's Bach but which fugue. I've heard lots of fugues played but this interpretation is inspired and inspiring!! WOW!!!

  • Sorry, sitarnut, but I find phrases taken from TV "it doesn't get any better than this" offensive while listening to this.

    It sounds like you're crackin' open a Budweiser on the lawn at Ravinia or Tanglewood.

    But God bless you anyway. I'm a snob without the musical training in performance that many posters have.

  • @spinoza1111 A modest snob!

  • @IpsaPaphum Indeed. I thank you.

  • I think it's an urban legend that Bach croaked writing the end of this fugue. I think he decided it was done. Cf. Edward Said, on Late Style: Bach was asking why a fugue has to end on a resolution. Cf Adorno: we should abase ourselves before the work of art, and not treat it as entertainment, something to meet our expectations.

  • The first note, D, is cut in the beginning of the video... but what a wonderful interpretation!

  • Eternal. 

  • Glenn Gould had three signatures: his humming, his reaching-into-the-air with his free hand, and his too-low-chair his father gave him. He was a little eccentric, and those three things would never change.

  • Though I absolutely love Glenn Gould and believe him to be the greatest Bach pianist ever, I must say that I don't agree with the humming. I know its supposed to be his obscure genius showing through and all that, but I have a hard time believing he couldn't control it if he tried. I just think it's a little gimmicky for a pianist of his stature, and that Bach should be shown some more respect.

  • @HammerOvThor

    Some people just have their little quirks. If he was concentrating hard, or off in his own little world, then he probably didn't even notice he was doing it. It's like people that stick their tongue out when they concentrate, you can't really stop it.

  • This is the crown piece of western art! Best I´ve ever heard! Long live Bach!

  • yeah he's awesome, but looks like a fruit with his hand waving all over the place. is that really necessary?

  • @koukides666

    the whole video thing aint necessary... close your eyes

  • @gr0mithtimon Then listen on cd. Sometimes one wants to see how the piece is played. Hence the magic of video.

  • this piece is like a full size Eiffel tower made of wire only

  • those who do not understand this do not understand life itself.

  • Who the hell are these creeps (babies, masturbation)? Xu, go away to your sorrowful lives and let us enjoy this beautiful music! Damn it!

  • where do i find music sheet for this

    and is that XV or XIV

  • babies are fools and liars!!!!!!!!

  • Babies are right idiots! Fucking idiots, I hate babies!

  • That's right, he becomes one with the music...it's in the fiber of his being. Transcendental and grounding at the same time...Love you GG, even though you have moved on the heavens...Thank you for sharing your heaven with us.

  • he was autistic

  • @LambChowder1 He's given quite interesting interviews, though !

  • Listen closely, you can hear his *humming along* very clearly in this one! I love how he "becomes one" with every piece he plays! This is gorgeous, don't you think?!

  • @DesertAnnie I have a feeling if he could sing more then one pitch he would not need a piano.

  • extraordinarily beautiful, deeply sensitive, tenderly reflective.

  • I get something different from this. It's almost as if he's sitting down with Bach, writing this as he plays this...

  • @megagnathos

    Yes, I think every human should learn to play this once before they die. It's not difficult, which might have been Bach's intention..

  • This is actually one of my inspirations to start learning piano. Bach as a whole is who got me into composing and now it feels inevitable I must learn to play the most practical instrument there is.

  • @parquar

    Wow, you're starting at the top. I hope your brain won't rebel.

  • Bach is the beginning and the end. I'm an atheist but I believe in the holy St Bach.

  • @CuriosusSum and Gould is his prophet

  • @CuriosusSum His music was a gift from God. The God of the bible i truly believe this. Wish more people did :)

  • @CuriosusSum Surely given a special post up there: God's organist!

  • very nice comment curzmg. i couldn't agree more!

  • A masterpiece played by a man who probably understood it better than all of us. It takes so much work to be let into the majesty of this piece. Musical theory, history, emotion... But once understood it becomes a passion.

  • @curzmg Totally agree a passion

    Since I discovered it, its been hunting me, and its over a year now

    You have to listen to the Emerson Quartet playing it.

  • @curzmg That's because while we grow in modern world we get away from IT. Show Bach to a baby he will love it. You don't need nothing to understand music. There is not even a part of the brain that react specifically to music. There is one for painting, architecture, sculpture and all other arts. Music generates a response of all parts of the brain together and none in particular, and is unique in this. You don't need to understand it. You need to know how to feel. That's difficult now.

  • Though I understand your general point, that sounds like pseudo-science to me. I have always felt that to understand music to its full emotional capacity one must understand it intellectually. I think especially that one can only truly appreciate Bach once they understand music technically.

  • In fact I am actually completely opposed to the sort of thing your alluding to. A baby will love anything, babies are idiots. A baby doesn't understand music in any profound sense, it understands it like my dog. I can make fart noises and a baby will love it, babies love anything that doesn't scare them - babies would hate Mussorgsky.