2:20 ON,IT'S TO ME THE EQUIVALENT OF NUCLEAR FISSION,IT SPINS MELODIES THAT MOST COMPOSERS RARELY CREATE,THAT IS TIMELESS,BEAUTIFUL,INDESCRIBABLE,UNIQUE FANTASY DREAM MUSIC,THOSE OF US,LUCKY TO LOVE PAUL'S GREAT MUSIC,ALWAYS,ALWAYS FIND SOMETHING NEW WHEN WE LISTEN TO IT,not vain repetitious,dead style baroque that is PASSED ON AS ""CLASSICAL",OR HIGHBROW MUSIC ON RADIO,AND CONTINUOUSLY BORING US IN CONCERT,""SEE THE STARS,NOT THE MUD",TIRED TO DEATH OF MOZART,LET THE OLE BOY REST!!
people who do not like,or appreciate hindemith,simply enjoy SIMPLE music,happy hearing old tired,repetitious MOZART,BAROQUE CHAMBERPOT MUSIC,for the rest of us,NOT LIVING,OR WISHING TO LIVE IN 1700 VIENNA,WE FIND,AS ONE HERE STATED "HINDEMITH=BORING",WE ARE BORED TO NAUSEA BY BAROQUE SIMPLE,OLD DEAD MATERIAL,ENDLESSLY PLAYED EVERY CONCERT,AND RADIO CLASSICAL STATION.allot would love hindemith,but never do they hear him,in phoenix,our classical,1hour mozart a DAY,then every damn hour.true!!!
Hindemith is an appallingly neglected composer- he's really a master on a par with Bartok etc. He's had a significant influence on British composers such as McCabe,Mathias, Leighton and Stevenson.
La atonalità e la dodecafonia non mi piacciono per nulla (l'uso come musica nei film è un'altra questione: vedi Ligeti in Odissea nello Spazio), ma trovo questo pezzo bello: sarà che è una fuga con un bel tema, e sarà che è uno specialista in fughe ad eseguirla...
There's a fugue in Par Lui Tout A Ete Fait from Messiaen's Vingt Regards, (with an incredible recording by Roger Muraro on youTube). That's one of my favourite C20 pieces. Although, it doesn't exactly shout fugue at you like this does.
Love this performance. 3.21 on especially. I like the recording as well, a little bit of pitch variation does wonders for fourths.
I find this music to be very emotional. Those of you that are claiming that it lacks emotional substance simple don't understand. I'm sorry if I'm hurting someone's feelings but that is how I see this issue. This is ignorance vs. understanding.
@TheDavid2222 i dont see it so much as ignorance. its just some people will connect to this music, and some people wont. not everyone connects to all music on an emotional level, and even though you can learn to appreciate the genius behind the writing, theres no way to teach yourself the connect to a piece you dont understand emotionally. its really sad that people sit around and argue about stuff like that.
wow I really like this! The only reason I have ever heard of this composer is because I read music books for fun. I wish composers were more well known, so that the general public could appreciate them.
Hindemith composes in the perfect syntax for modern polyphony that maintains its integrety in the tonal form while keeping the listener engaged. This fugue is well within the comfort zone of the diatonic form without becoming didactic or divorced from tonality alltogether.
There's a reason atonal music is not fugal: it's too easy. Free use of dissonant simultaneities makes S and CS redundant (Bartok, in "Music for Strings..." is after the TEXTURE of mutivoices). Hindemith= 20thC ton
Hindemith composes in the perfect syntax for modern polyphony that maintains its integrety in the tonal form while keeping the listener engaged. This fugue is well within the "comfort zone" of the diatonic form without becoming didactic or divorced from tonality alltogether.
There's a reason atonal music is not fugal: it's too easy. Free use of dissonant simultaneities makes S and CS redundant (Bartok, in "Music for Strings..." is after the TEXTURE of mutivoices). Hindemith= 20thC ton
the idea of this being uninspired doesnt make. nobody could ever create such an amazing composition on a whim just for the sake of tedium, it just would not be worth it, you wouldn't even get past the exposition.
uninspirING, however is fairly subjective and believable, but I happen to love it : )
Did Glenn Gould actually say that, Barbara? I see his point, too. Most people I know who do not listen to classical music believe I do because pop music overwhelms me (with all its "noise", guitars and drums) but it's the absolute opposite. Nothing ever seems to happen in pop music...
Gould, like many classically trained musicians, found that pop music was not "wrong." However, it's the repetition within that form that they usually disdained. It's quite unsettling to flat-out know what's going to happen next.
@aculturemind (Remember that Hindemith fancied the 4th and 5ths to the reliability of the 3rd. His advocation of the overtone series was unsurpassed.)
As for the comfort comment, if that were true, we never would have seen the evolution of Classical to Romantic, Romantic to Modern, Modern to Post-Modern. There is a great interest in the "new," some might say "improved."
Nah, dude. The masses have an interest in novelty. A relative handful have an interest in Novel-ty. Further, there *was no* pop culture in the 19th century. Or, in other words, the volka did not determine what was art. Mm.
Regarding the first part of your last: it doesn't matter what interval(s) you decide to favor, harmonic function is more than mathematical.
We may consider, and dare I say agree, that these masses are inditing people. There is a need to separate history books from the tabloids. Despite that the "new" may be of interest (which, in fact, is quite repetitious), it doesn't create iconoclast and the abiding have strong ties to their own history.
While I agree that mathematics do not define the final outcome of any music, my reference to the overtone series was merely an answer to your tertian assumptions.
I've been periodically returning to your last. My (never imminent, mind) answer is: dude, humans have strong feelings for history. It's just a matter of what parts *of it* (or that they have imagined...).
there is plenty intense pop music .Much has been done in pop music that comes from 20 th cent.Hear CAN , KingCrimson, Oingo-Boingo,DeadcanDance,Brian Eno, sunRa,Monk.There are geniuses everywhere they ain't all dead white males. Gubadulina & Meredith Monk,Ono come to mind. Doobie doo doobiedoo can support folk and strains. aint so bad..
While I agree that pop music should be defended, I consider a lot of those musicians (King Crimson and Brian Eno for instance) far from pop. But then, I define pop as 'music that follows pop structure/harmonic patterns'. In other words, you can be a 'pop' band without being popular, while 'A Day in the Life' by the Beatles is popular, but not 'pop'.
But I'm guessing you define pop as 'popular', correct?
@lovesGenet a few rare pop musicians have even ventured into fugue writing... keith emerson (from emerson lake and palmer) for example. and some guy from gentle giant wrote a pretty interesting fugue.
The quartal harmony, based on perfect 4ths, allows linear patterns to land on one of those intervals and establish itself as a temporary tonal center. The genius of Hindemith is how he manages to work all of these temporary tonal centers into a sophisticated composition and return, at the end, to the original tonal center. I always liked to refer to his style as "floating tonality".
'Floating tonality'. Well, yes. Because there isn't the same harmonic functionality. Hence, modulation is less distinct. I've always had a much harder time with 'quartal' harmony, because of this....weaker....harmonic functioning. Despite the polyphony and counterpoint, there seems to be a lot of fill around actual chords. Dodecophony in contrast is far more harmonically inclusive.
@PENNSY671E To add to your already excellent analysis of Hindemith's musical language, if I may: I admire his use of a hierarchical system of dissonance to create, manipulate and ultimately resolve tension, and his use of all twelve "chromatic" tones of the octave to establish a true "twelve-tone tonality". The term "dodecaphonic" is applied to Schoenberg & Co. in error - the correct term for their music is "serial" - Hindemith is the true "dodecaphonic" composer.
@moiliryc it is tonal, but hindemith does not really use traditional western harmony (dominant, tonic, etc) but instead, he likes to use something that's called quartal harmonies. nevertheless, this is a tonal piece.
@b0ttomzone yes, I know quartal harmonies (even if I can't recognise it by hear), but to me it's still a bit hard to consider it as tonal ( I don't consider the word atonal as pejorative), as high baroque music is'nt tonal... It's just a matter of analysis...
@NemoProkofiev551 Writing in the dorian mode in Bach's time was nothing groundbreaking. Quite the opposite, it was seen at that time as outdated (the dorian mode used to be en vogue during the 16th and 17th centuries, only to be pushed aside by the newly invented minor key).
Both Bach and Hindemith were rather conservative, compared to their contemporaries.
Hindemith was pretty conservative in his later years, but as a young composer he was a true punk. Not many composers have written movements for string quartet called 'The Flying Dutchman Overture as Sight-Read by a Bad Spa Orchestra by the Village Well at Seven in the Morning'.
I mean no offense, but I do sort of get how Mr Gould found pop music a bit...uneventful. After listening to music this awesome, pop music becomes... well, boring!
@BarbaraPloyer333 I don't know... I'll take Green Day or Jane's Addiction or even Lady Gaga ANY day over this. And I'm not a pop music fan. I'm a Juilliard graduate who finds Hindemith uninspired and tedious. I found this fugue particularly "uneventful and boring."
@BarbaraPloyer333 While this is interesting on an intellectual level, I don't really find it to be committed on an emotional level the way other kinds of music can be. Gould certainly plays with passion, but i don't ever feel like the harmonic and melodic acrobatics ever add up to anything. I also think that dismissing all "pop music" as lacking substance is willful ignorance.
@MagicDolphinGO I agree with you... popular music is the same as classical in the sense that no musical style or genre transcends another. Music is music as a whole. This music is glorious, not only on the intellect but also on other levels. I guess it depends on your personal taste (which is based upon your experiences) as to whether you find some music more appealing! =)
@BarbaraPloyer333 I guess it all kind of depends on what kind of pop music you're talking about. Most of what passes for pop music these days is pure crap, put out purely to make money.
Glenn Gould did like some (a very few) pop singers, but not what we call rock (from The Beatles onwards). He even considered making a radiomentary about Barbara Streisand...
It's funny that you should mention 'boring' about Hindemith, since he IS often described as such (by classical music lovers, I mean). Glenn, being Glenn, of course, played him everything BUT boring, sure enough.
A good example of Weber's "not-very-well-known pieces" are the ones written for two pianos that later became "The Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Weber". Surely, a great piece of orchestral music that is pure fun to listen to.
This composition is like a modern rendition of J.S Bach's counter point. Just listening to Glen Gould's recording session in Colombia records of Bach's Italian concerto and having that sound in my ear I easily hear the parallels between Mr. Hindemith piano sonata and Bach's music. This is definitely within Glen Gould's specialty repertoire and his unique sound.
The last three piano sonatas by Hindemith are, simply put, amazing. The tonal language he uses- one of his own devising- has nothing of the imposed logic of dodecaphonic writing, but rather, is more akin to "dissonant weight" and "tonal gravity." the end result, especially with the sonatas, is music that is reminiscent of other styles but yet completely self-contained. They are brilliant compositions.
Yes, some people do listen a lot of Hindemith, but that's not what I said. I said that "I don't suppose that most of us listen to a lot of Hindemith". Let's face it, most people don't listen to Hindemith. Most people don't listen to "classical" music at all, and those that listen to 20th century composers are a minority of a minority. These are simply facts, not opinions. It doesn't knock Hindemith to say that not enough people listen to him, although some do - you and I, for example.
Gould was brilliant at taking not-very-well-known pieces by underrated composers and bringing out the genius of the writing. Beyond the 'Mathis der Maler' symphony, I don't suppose that most of us listen to a lot of Hindemith, and yet Gould convinces me with this performance that Hindemith is a brilliant composer.
Nobilissima visione, mathis der maler, the three piano sonatas, ludus tonalis- Hindemith was, in my opinion, one of the most original. He forged a tonal language based on the harmonic series and managed to completely avoid Arnold Schoenberg. No small success for a German composer at that time.
Here you can hear Hindemith's clear gift. He has many other great pieces. Herodiade is one. It, for me, is one of the greatest pieces of music. Sadly there are no good recordings of it on you tube.
fugue is deffinitelly the most remarkable musical form and maniacal as well- eternal recurrence of the melodic theme running throughout all voices with accompannying contrapunctus along combined into spider`s web perfect structure,sense of which only an insane`s able to catch! and hindemith with gould were those two,who had brought to life some of bach`s intuitions,maybe...
I don't have the volume jacked up, but Gould seems to be restraining, to some degree, his usual vocal accompaniment... He's interesting to watch. He reminds me of Robert Silverman, that actor who often plays freaky roles in David Cronenburg films.
I definitely agree with the comparisons that people are making to Bach....Hindemith seems to have very effectively taken Bach's fugal style and taken it into the 20th century. (That Also explains Goulds interest in this piece)
a serious question that occured to me while watching Gould on his small chair: is there a piano that is made for small people, like midgets or something?
It was only speculated that Gould had Asperger's quite a while after he died (10 years or so), and polymath7 is right, it is only speculative and has never been definitively diagnosed. He may have displayed some symptoms of Asperger's, but I think many people were (and now) anxious to label him in a feeble attempt to explain his eccentricities. Just because someone breaks the molds and conventions, why do they always have to be labelled as being ill, crazy, diseased, etc.?
i dont think so,have a look how he communicates with the two sound engineers after the bach recordings.very charming he is doing small talk at nyc´s coffee shop i guess,that´s definitely no asperger´s!
of course he was not able to talk to everybody,but who is able or has the mood to do so!!
Actually, my point exactly, at least in part. He was able to be very talkative and charming when he wanted to be, but usually in small gatherings or even more in one on one situations. I think part of the reason it has been speculated that he had Asperger's was b/c he was emotionally (or at least appeared) disconnected from people and was intensely uncomfortable arounds crowds and such among other things. I myself don't think that means Asperger's at all, for many people are similar.
i agree,glenn was also very contradictory:he was afraid of certain things because he feared getting lost,for example romantic aspects in the piano music,nobody could play brahms,strauss and wagner so emotionally like him.
he was also against hedonism because of his puritanical education i guess,sometimes he alienated mozart or beethoven,but i think he loved both composers.
the alienation effect was his friend i think.meeting and talking to people perhaps the same...?
You're right - he was definitely against hedonism. What he disliked about a lot of Romantic Era piano music was it's excessive virtuosity and exhibitionism, which reminded him (understandably) to the pugnacious, competitive, blood-thirsty attitudes towards musical performance. He did love solitude, and expounded upon it's value and benefits. He did love much of Mozart and Beethoven's music, but certainly not all, again due to what he deemed hedonistic and/or egotisical.
additionally mentioned he was the opinion that all music which is not contrapuntual might low-grade,music of poor quality,perhaps also as a result of the puritanical awareness of life.probably therefore he adored bach´s music so much because his music was the most in accordance with his own character.
I seem to remember that he once described Mozart in an interview as "basically a dramatist", which from Gould's point of view was just about the worst possible insult.
Yeah, I remember him saying something similar too. I believe it was in reference to after Mozart moved to Vienna and the effects that Viennese opera had on his music. Gould felt that Mozart's music then became too theatrical, which more or less means the same thing as Mozart becoming a "dramatist." That is indeed about the worst insult coming from Gould, although he loved Mozart's early works. He said he would've been happy if his style stayed the same after approximately K.300.
I don't think that Gould had a very "puritanical education". Apart from the fact that he was very musically gifted from an early age, he had a similar education to most Canadian kids of his generation. I think he had a puritanical temperament.
Gould did have a pretty normal education although he didn't finish high school. Part of his puritanical temperament came from his mother, who had a very profound influence on him.
I find it interesting the way he seems to dance to him playing, maybe it's to remember, but i like how the melodic bits have him singing to himself. And the harsher chords seems to punch him in the face XD
As we can see, GG always plays without reading any sheet music! His gifted mind used to work like some of the autistic phenomenal minds which keeps and repeats exactly, word for word, everything learned in thousand of books...
Glenn Gould assimilated musical pieces with such ease, it's instantly noticeable by the perfection of his renditions. However, we can all agree that his interpretations are sometimes questionable but I tend to side with his notion of playing pieces with a degree of personal nuance. Only a master can infuse his identity into a piece the way Gould did and I don't necessarily concur with the assertion that Glenn was simply repeating things verbatim. Gould was a deeply philosophical musician.
Glen Gould could as easily been a musicologist, music historian, a teacher on music theory, or conductor. He was incredibly gifted. I can say I have heard other Pianists who play as well or better on certain pieces, however Gould's performances are unique. Glen Gould's writing on Music (for instance the preface to an edition of the WTC book 2 of Bach) were incredibly insightful on the harmonic progressions used in this book as opposed to the Art of Fugue's harmonic. vocabulary
Thank you for your insight. 2 questions: which other pianists (as well or better, in your words) and second, do you think this piece or anything except Bach held his interes? Best.
I will answer your 2nd question1st; GG had eclectic tastes. He played Schoenberg, Webern, Berg as well as Sweelinck and Gibbons (rarely played by concert pianists) and championed the Piano works of Richard Strauss. After abandoning the Concert Hall for the Recording Studio he recorded the Liszt 's transcription of Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Wagner, however GG's name is forever linked with JS Bach and his record buyer public to some extent had an influenced as to his output.
opulent,oh how glenn could have done such justice to the "ludus tonalis",i truly believe as do i as a buddhist,that some artists,gifted,close to "god",transcend,and bring from the astral and heavenly realms great art.tibetans see color and music as one,hindemith was definately a "astral",and beyond traveler,get into his music people,his opera "cardillac" is a vision,as well his piano pieces and string quartets.
wow, i love the way he continually brings back that opening theme in new and innovative ways....this epitomizes everything i love about fugues....remarkable, the best of 20th century music
Would anyone ever listen to this if Glenn hadn't recorded it? I very likely wouldn't have. It's well worth having listened to.
renoraider2 1 week ago in playlist Glenn Gould - Misc. artists
Is this a double fugue?
darthjoey13 3 weeks ago
thank you so much
yusukeundisolde 3 weeks ago
In my opinion, this sonata ranks with the Art of Fugue & the Hammerklavier.
Highly recommended!
KLINGSOR11 4 weeks ago
2:20 ON,IT'S TO ME THE EQUIVALENT OF NUCLEAR FISSION,IT SPINS MELODIES THAT MOST COMPOSERS RARELY CREATE,THAT IS TIMELESS,BEAUTIFUL,INDESCRIBABLE,UNIQUE FANTASY DREAM MUSIC,THOSE OF US,LUCKY TO LOVE PAUL'S GREAT MUSIC,ALWAYS,ALWAYS FIND SOMETHING NEW WHEN WE LISTEN TO IT,not vain repetitious,dead style baroque that is PASSED ON AS ""CLASSICAL",OR HIGHBROW MUSIC ON RADIO,AND CONTINUOUSLY BORING US IN CONCERT,""SEE THE STARS,NOT THE MUD",TIRED TO DEATH OF MOZART,LET THE OLE BOY REST!!
alezander666 1 month ago
@alezander666 IT MAKES ME GLAD THAT YOU ARE VERY ENTHUSIASTIC
kierkexauss 1 month ago
4 tipos fugan de las fugas.
pabloavarela57 2 months ago
people who do not like,or appreciate hindemith,simply enjoy SIMPLE music,happy hearing old tired,repetitious MOZART,BAROQUE CHAMBERPOT MUSIC,for the rest of us,NOT LIVING,OR WISHING TO LIVE IN 1700 VIENNA,WE FIND,AS ONE HERE STATED "HINDEMITH=BORING",WE ARE BORED TO NAUSEA BY BAROQUE SIMPLE,OLD DEAD MATERIAL,ENDLESSLY PLAYED EVERY CONCERT,AND RADIO CLASSICAL STATION.allot would love hindemith,but never do they hear him,in phoenix,our classical,1hour mozart a DAY,then every damn hour.true!!!
alezander666 2 months ago
Excellent.
AfroPoli 3 months ago
I think this performance alone will be enough to convert any Glenn Gould hater. So perfect.
ceilingkatt 4 months ago
@supiluliumas15
Hindemith was a great Fugue writer, but you should try Johann Nepomuk David !
An outstanding austrian Composer and a Polyphonist par excellence.
Unfortunately he is not very well known nowadays ..
If you love Bach and Fugues and contrapuntal Music you'll love David
MeinKomponist 4 months ago
Hindemith is an appallingly neglected composer- he's really a master on a par with Bartok etc. He's had a significant influence on British composers such as McCabe,Mathias, Leighton and Stevenson.
MGJS71 4 months ago 2
Amazing,,,,,,
robertwbecker 4 months ago
La atonalità e la dodecafonia non mi piacciono per nulla (l'uso come musica nei film è un'altra questione: vedi Ligeti in Odissea nello Spazio), ma trovo questo pezzo bello: sarà che è una fuga con un bel tema, e sarà che è uno specialista in fughe ad eseguirla...
Anormalista89 5 months ago
Just excellent.
Vaguereality 5 months ago
Amazing, Just that.
Chirulinex 5 months ago in playlist serialismo
This Sonata is a absolute masterpiece
framaulo 5 months ago
There's a fugue in Par Lui Tout A Ete Fait from Messiaen's Vingt Regards, (with an incredible recording by Roger Muraro on youTube). That's one of my favourite C20 pieces. Although, it doesn't exactly shout fugue at you like this does.
Love this performance. 3.21 on especially. I like the recording as well, a little bit of pitch variation does wonders for fourths.
SoSleepySoSueMe 6 months ago
@supiluliumas15 hard call, there were so little fugues written, I have to go with barber and his amazing 4th movement of the piano sonata
F1R1NMAHLAZAH 6 months ago
Hindemith definetely is one of the greatest masters of contrepoint .
Breaking up with all harmonic conventions - with so much sense for structure, rythm and melody.
in many of his works you clearly can hear his passion for early music.
pjwdfn 7 months ago in playlist Classical Music
@pjwdfn "You can clearly hear his passion for early music."
I don't know if you'd consider Bach "early music", but it seems obvious to me that this piece was directly inspired by BWV 891.
Surely I can't be the only one who's noticed this?
polymath7 4 months ago 2
Looks like Steinway hadn't had sons at the time of the recording!
fcoclarinete 8 months ago
@ernestovitoria Gould sings when he plays, so that explains his expressions. Still has a bunch of other eccentricities though.
tehnpv 8 months ago
dat counterpoint
Elmothefuzzle 8 months ago
The episode starting with the bass subject at 1:37 is magnificent.
musicalidea 10 months ago
Great thanks!!!
pinturner 10 months ago
Unfortunate that the soundtrack has pitch wobble in it.
knocknwalk 1 year ago
Look at the passion in his playing... It's beautiful and almost eerie...
MichaelJLgs19p 1 year ago
after Gould & Hindemith, only the silence... :-)))
triociola 1 year ago
this is absolutely astonishing!!!! what a fabulous piece of music!
amatorynumber 1 year ago
I find this music to be very emotional. Those of you that are claiming that it lacks emotional substance simple don't understand. I'm sorry if I'm hurting someone's feelings but that is how I see this issue. This is ignorance vs. understanding.
TheDavid2222 1 year ago 9
@TheDavid2222 i dont see it so much as ignorance. its just some people will connect to this music, and some people wont. not everyone connects to all music on an emotional level, and even though you can learn to appreciate the genius behind the writing, theres no way to teach yourself the connect to a piece you dont understand emotionally. its really sad that people sit around and argue about stuff like that.
chrismuscaroler 1 year ago
wow I really like this! The only reason I have ever heard of this composer is because I read music books for fun. I wish composers were more well known, so that the general public could appreciate them.
TheDavid2222 1 year ago
Bravo!
Hindemith composes in the perfect syntax for modern polyphony that maintains its integrety in the tonal form while keeping the listener engaged. This fugue is well within the comfort zone of the diatonic form without becoming didactic or divorced from tonality alltogether.
There's a reason atonal music is not fugal: it's too easy. Free use of dissonant simultaneities makes S and CS redundant (Bartok, in "Music for Strings..." is after the TEXTURE of mutivoices). Hindemith= 20thC ton
hotplate85 1 year ago
Bravo!
Hindemith composes in the perfect syntax for modern polyphony that maintains its integrety in the tonal form while keeping the listener engaged. This fugue is well within the "comfort zone" of the diatonic form without becoming didactic or divorced from tonality alltogether.
There's a reason atonal music is not fugal: it's too easy. Free use of dissonant simultaneities makes S and CS redundant (Bartok, in "Music for Strings..." is after the TEXTURE of mutivoices). Hindemith= 20thC ton
hotplate85 1 year ago
the idea of this being uninspired doesnt make. nobody could ever create such an amazing composition on a whim just for the sake of tedium, it just would not be worth it, you wouldn't even get past the exposition.
uninspirING, however is fairly subjective and believable, but I happen to love it : )
petezilla 1 year ago
Did Glenn Gould actually say that, Barbara? I see his point, too. Most people I know who do not listen to classical music believe I do because pop music overwhelms me (with all its "noise", guitars and drums) but it's the absolute opposite. Nothing ever seems to happen in pop music...
radekpsk 1 year ago
@BarbaraPloyer333 Pop music IS uneventful compared to art music. At itsbest pop music is entertaining but that is about all. Art music is so more...
arete1952 1 year ago
You have to be a bit crazy to play this well. Gould was.
kch100 1 year ago
This pianist is a fucking genius !
harpsinth 1 year ago
le wow
unclejohnthezef 1 year ago
Don't see how banjo coulda improved that one.
TaterGumfries 1 year ago
There is some amazing writing and playing here.
KABRIS1 1 year ago
hindemith+fugues=EPIC WIN
mystuff730 1 year ago 2
Bach and Gould + fourths and chromaticism.
KABRIS1 1 year ago
Gould, like many classically trained musicians, found that pop music was not "wrong." However, it's the repetition within that form that they usually disdained. It's quite unsettling to flat-out know what's going to happen next.
maxcohen13 1 year ago
@maxcohen13
That's just it. It's not just popcul music, but any mainly tertian-tonal music. Familiarity, or at least certainty, is comfort. It's biological.
aculturemind 1 year ago
@aculturemind (Remember that Hindemith fancied the 4th and 5ths to the reliability of the 3rd. His advocation of the overtone series was unsurpassed.)
As for the comfort comment, if that were true, we never would have seen the evolution of Classical to Romantic, Romantic to Modern, Modern to Post-Modern. There is a great interest in the "new," some might say "improved."
maxcohen13 1 year ago
@maxcohen13
Nah, dude. The masses have an interest in novelty. A relative handful have an interest in Novel-ty. Further, there *was no* pop culture in the 19th century. Or, in other words, the volka did not determine what was art. Mm.
Regarding the first part of your last: it doesn't matter what interval(s) you decide to favor, harmonic function is more than mathematical.
aculturemind 1 year ago
@aculturemind
We may consider, and dare I say agree, that these masses are inditing people. There is a need to separate history books from the tabloids. Despite that the "new" may be of interest (which, in fact, is quite repetitious), it doesn't create iconoclast and the abiding have strong ties to their own history.
While I agree that mathematics do not define the final outcome of any music, my reference to the overtone series was merely an answer to your tertian assumptions.
maxcohen13 1 year ago
@maxcohen13
I've been periodically returning to your last. My (never imminent, mind) answer is: dude, humans have strong feelings for history. It's just a matter of what parts *of it* (or that they have imagined...).
aculturemind 1 year ago
Gould's the man for this.
Composerland 1 year ago
This a great piece. The rhythms are almost gleeful but the notes just don't quite agree.
Djinsu 1 year ago
This is the melding of two minds of genius: Hindemith and Gould. Wow! As an pianist and organist, I absolutely love fugal counterpoint. Great stuff!
justin10292000 1 year ago
there is plenty intense pop music .Much has been done in pop music that comes from 20 th cent.Hear CAN , KingCrimson, Oingo-Boingo,DeadcanDance,Brian Eno, sunRa,Monk.There are geniuses everywhere they ain't all dead white males. Gubadulina & Meredith Monk,Ono come to mind. Doobie doo doobiedoo can support folk and strains. aint so bad..
lovesGenet 1 year ago
@lovesGenet
While I agree that pop music should be defended, I consider a lot of those musicians (King Crimson and Brian Eno for instance) far from pop. But then, I define pop as 'music that follows pop structure/harmonic patterns'. In other words, you can be a 'pop' band without being popular, while 'A Day in the Life' by the Beatles is popular, but not 'pop'.
But I'm guessing you define pop as 'popular', correct?
AEFic 1 year ago
@lovesGenet a few rare pop musicians have even ventured into fugue writing... keith emerson (from emerson lake and palmer) for example. and some guy from gentle giant wrote a pretty interesting fugue.
b0ttomzone 1 year ago
Great piece. Hindemith is criminally underrated.
HolyKatana 1 year ago 2
The quartal harmony, based on perfect 4ths, allows linear patterns to land on one of those intervals and establish itself as a temporary tonal center. The genius of Hindemith is how he manages to work all of these temporary tonal centers into a sophisticated composition and return, at the end, to the original tonal center. I always liked to refer to his style as "floating tonality".
PENNSY671E 1 year ago 35
@PENNSY671E
'Floating tonality'. Well, yes. Because there isn't the same harmonic functionality. Hence, modulation is less distinct. I've always had a much harder time with 'quartal' harmony, because of this....weaker....harmonic functioning. Despite the polyphony and counterpoint, there seems to be a lot of fill around actual chords. Dodecophony in contrast is far more harmonically inclusive.
aculturemind 1 year ago
@PENNSY671E To add to your already excellent analysis of Hindemith's musical language, if I may: I admire his use of a hierarchical system of dissonance to create, manipulate and ultimately resolve tension, and his use of all twelve "chromatic" tones of the octave to establish a true "twelve-tone tonality". The term "dodecaphonic" is applied to Schoenberg & Co. in error - the correct term for their music is "serial" - Hindemith is the true "dodecaphonic" composer.
mhb659221 5 months ago
@PENNSY671E evident when you play Hindemith...
Piccinels 2 months ago
@PENNSY671E When you say ''Land on one of those'' Is it the interval itself that is center of this system of harmony or is it a pole from it?
rossignolmusic 1 week ago in playlist Piano classique
Can anybody tell me why consider this piece as tonal or atonal?
moiliryc 1 year ago
@moiliryc homework fail.
its tonal
ceilingkatt 1 year ago
@ceilingkatt you don't really help me! I hear to tonal move and no 1st and 5th degrees (I don't know technical terms in english).
moiliryc 1 year ago
@moiliryc It is tonal, because there is always a tonal centre.
ceilingkatt 1 year ago
@moiliryc it is tonal, but hindemith does not really use traditional western harmony (dominant, tonic, etc) but instead, he likes to use something that's called quartal harmonies. nevertheless, this is a tonal piece.
b0ttomzone 1 year ago
@b0ttomzone yes, I know quartal harmonies (even if I can't recognise it by hear), but to me it's still a bit hard to consider it as tonal ( I don't consider the word atonal as pejorative), as high baroque music is'nt tonal... It's just a matter of analysis...
moiliryc 1 year ago
great hindemith and great gould!
olgabenitoharp 1 year ago
Very cool piece, and it sometimes even winks at Land of hope and glory!
HooksGambit 1 year ago
Does he look to anyone else like Anthony Perkins in Psycho?
rwocmo 1 year ago
I remember this was one of the "blind" analyses I had to do for my qualifying music exams. This is a great modern example of a double fugue.
Hs3u39 2 years ago 2
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God awful. Modern architecture, modern art and modern music. All worthless shit.
SzalonaSzymonka 2 years ago
Must be particularly horrible for you that we now live in the post-postmodern period, then. Treble whammy of modernity.
lexo30 2 years ago
there's a solution: it's called killing yourself!!! you reeeally should try.....
Robusto103 1 year ago
Comment removed
NemoProkofiev551 2 years ago
@NemoProkofiev551 Writing in the dorian mode in Bach's time was nothing groundbreaking. Quite the opposite, it was seen at that time as outdated (the dorian mode used to be en vogue during the 16th and 17th centuries, only to be pushed aside by the newly invented minor key).
Both Bach and Hindemith were rather conservative, compared to their contemporaries.
Timrath 2 years ago
Hindemith was pretty conservative in his later years, but as a young composer he was a true punk. Not many composers have written movements for string quartet called 'The Flying Dutchman Overture as Sight-Read by a Bad Spa Orchestra by the Village Well at Seven in the Morning'.
lexo30 2 years ago 3
this is a revelation...absolutely beautiful.
eliasbb 2 years ago 2
This is amazing. Like waves coming in. Strange, exciting, yet somehow peaceful.
deconstructo11 2 years ago
I mean no offense, but I do sort of get how Mr Gould found pop music a bit...uneventful. After listening to music this awesome, pop music becomes... well, boring!
BarbaraPloyer333 2 years ago 61
@BarbaraPloyer333 I agree, but I must add that he was a big Barbra Streisand fan.
petezilla 1 year ago
@BarbaraPloyer333 I don't know where you have heard that before? He was an enormous fanatic toward Barbara Streisand.
hibernatinghedgehog 1 year ago
@BarbaraPloyer333 I don't know... I'll take Green Day or Jane's Addiction or even Lady Gaga ANY day over this. And I'm not a pop music fan. I'm a Juilliard graduate who finds Hindemith uninspired and tedious. I found this fugue particularly "uneventful and boring."
organboi 1 year ago
@organboi How do you get this to be uneventful?
Fuglebolle 1 year ago
@organboi
Education isn't a determining factor. So said the sixth zen patriarch.
aculturemind 1 year ago
@BarbaraPloyer333 While this is interesting on an intellectual level, I don't really find it to be committed on an emotional level the way other kinds of music can be. Gould certainly plays with passion, but i don't ever feel like the harmonic and melodic acrobatics ever add up to anything. I also think that dismissing all "pop music" as lacking substance is willful ignorance.
MagicDolphinGO 1 year ago
@MagicDolphinGO I agree with you... popular music is the same as classical in the sense that no musical style or genre transcends another. Music is music as a whole. This music is glorious, not only on the intellect but also on other levels. I guess it depends on your personal taste (which is based upon your experiences) as to whether you find some music more appealing! =)
NemoProkofiev551 1 year ago
@BarbaraPloyer333 wot about Rick Astley?
chrish12345 6 months ago
@BarbaraPloyer333 I guess it all kind of depends on what kind of pop music you're talking about. Most of what passes for pop music these days is pure crap, put out purely to make money.
mightyafrowhitey 5 months ago
@BarbaraPloyer333
Glenn Gould did like some (a very few) pop singers, but not what we call rock (from The Beatles onwards). He even considered making a radiomentary about Barbara Streisand...
It's funny that you should mention 'boring' about Hindemith, since he IS often described as such (by classical music lovers, I mean). Glenn, being Glenn, of course, played him everything BUT boring, sure enough.
CaptainBluebear08 4 months ago
@CaptainBluebear08 Yeah, I agree. Not to mention, he was one quirky mofo! There's eccentric, then there's Glenn Gould!
murrburr3 2 months ago
how he can sing this atonal peace ?
googlekopfkind 2 years ago
Perfect pitch- LOL!
BarbaraPloyer333 2 years ago
@googlekopfkind This fugue is far from atonal. It's in B flat all the way, although there's lots of chromatic wandering.
But I don't know how one would sing it. Maybe you can scream it.
soaringvulture 2 years ago 3
i think gould is just a genius
googlekopfkind 2 years ago
@googlekopfkind
This is no atonal piece!
garypledet 2 years ago
Such ignorance. I hate when someone calls a 20th centruy piece atonal.
mahler151 2 years ago 3
A good example of Weber's "not-very-well-known pieces" are the ones written for two pianos that later became "The Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Weber". Surely, a great piece of orchestral music that is pure fun to listen to.
Opoczynski 2 years ago
SSStunning !
JEIWILBER 2 years ago 2
This composition is like a modern rendition of J.S Bach's counter point. Just listening to Glen Gould's recording session in Colombia records of Bach's Italian concerto and having that sound in my ear I easily hear the parallels between Mr. Hindemith piano sonata and Bach's music. This is definitely within Glen Gould's specialty repertoire and his unique sound.
ObeeLektro 2 years ago 3
The last three piano sonatas by Hindemith are, simply put, amazing. The tonal language he uses- one of his own devising- has nothing of the imposed logic of dodecaphonic writing, but rather, is more akin to "dissonant weight" and "tonal gravity." the end result, especially with the sonatas, is music that is reminiscent of other styles but yet completely self-contained. They are brilliant compositions.
bigtime360 2 years ago 2
Oh, Glenn! In your grip, my heart was a piano, and at the string/heartstrings... you tucked??
you get the metaphor :P
eeClaytonification 2 years ago
Well, you might be Chopin.
EMPERORMIKI 2 years ago
Glenn is great!
wolfgango1991 2 years ago
Those 4ths are really the thing in todays music, clever stuff to make such a fugue with a modern aproach of the intervalic
Mufasajazz 2 years ago
that's very presumptious
maybe some people do listen to a lot of hindemith
eeClaytonification 2 years ago
Yes, some people do listen a lot of Hindemith, but that's not what I said. I said that "I don't suppose that most of us listen to a lot of Hindemith". Let's face it, most people don't listen to Hindemith. Most people don't listen to "classical" music at all, and those that listen to 20th century composers are a minority of a minority. These are simply facts, not opinions. It doesn't knock Hindemith to say that not enough people listen to him, although some do - you and I, for example.
lexo30 2 years ago
Gould was brilliant at taking not-very-well-known pieces by underrated composers and bringing out the genius of the writing. Beyond the 'Mathis der Maler' symphony, I don't suppose that most of us listen to a lot of Hindemith, and yet Gould convinces me with this performance that Hindemith is a brilliant composer.
lexo30 2 years ago 2
Nobilissima visione, mathis der maler, the three piano sonatas, ludus tonalis- Hindemith was, in my opinion, one of the most original. He forged a tonal language based on the harmonic series and managed to completely avoid Arnold Schoenberg. No small success for a German composer at that time.
bigtime360 2 years ago
That was amazingly brilliant! I have a great deal more respect for Hindemith after hearing this work.
Zebeldarebel 2 years ago 3
Not polytonal. More like 4th interval codes.
plasnu 2 years ago
is this polytonal?
fagottist 2 years ago
i can´t find this anywhere else.. this is not the piano sonata no.3..
ThePhilosorpheus 2 years ago
Yes it is. It's the 4th (and last) movement
gislim 2 years ago
it is indeed, but i still can´t find it anywhere
ThePhilosorpheus 2 years ago
Magnificent.
ThePhilosorpheus 2 years ago
...great great pianoplaying.all is so clear concerning articulation and polyphonic structure,it sounds majestically.
ya,hindemith,really great...when glenn is at work!!
berlinzerberus 2 years ago
esplendido, que buena manera de recordarnos a bach, hindemith era un maestro!
Mufasajazz 2 years ago
Here you can hear Hindemith's clear gift. He has many other great pieces. Herodiade is one. It, for me, is one of the greatest pieces of music. Sadly there are no good recordings of it on you tube.
nauJRodriguez 2 years ago
What a gift!!!
raanan17 2 years ago
I couldn't find any statements from Hindemith himself on Youtube so I recorded a quotation from his excellent book "A Composer's World" >>
watch?v=rQ-Txu5ew98
GrantValdes 2 years ago
fugue is deffinitelly the most remarkable musical form and maniacal as well- eternal recurrence of the melodic theme running throughout all voices with accompannying contrapunctus along combined into spider`s web perfect structure,sense of which only an insane`s able to catch! and hindemith with gould were those two,who had brought to life some of bach`s intuitions,maybe...
FreieStadtElbing 2 years ago
I don't have the volume jacked up, but Gould seems to be restraining, to some degree, his usual vocal accompaniment... He's interesting to watch. He reminds me of Robert Silverman, that actor who often plays freaky roles in David Cronenburg films.
dnggitg 2 years ago
I definitely agree with the comparisons that people are making to Bach....Hindemith seems to have very effectively taken Bach's fugal style and taken it into the 20th century. (That Also explains Goulds interest in this piece)
Marklar0 2 years ago
This sounds quite a bit like BWV 971.
polymath7 2 years ago
Christ. I meant BWV 891.
polymath7 2 years ago
@polymath7 At last, at least 1 people who have realized. Tnx a lot. Kinda fearsome one tough.XD
NatteGuilty 1 year ago
Hindemith was a master, no doubt about it.
flammesombres 2 years ago
a serious question that occured to me while watching Gould on his small chair: is there a piano that is made for small people, like midgets or something?
priMMoz 2 years ago
Gould had Asperger, and it's one of those conduct-details that characterizes this Syndrome
ViewerNotes 2 years ago
You're talking out of your hat.
Any notion that Gould had Asperger's syndrome is speculative at best, and sheerly fictitious at worst.
polymath7 2 years ago
People just throw around labels too damn much. Did Gould have AS? I'd be fairly confident in saying yes, but it is of EXTREMELY little significance.
flammesombres 2 years ago
It was only speculated that Gould had Asperger's quite a while after he died (10 years or so), and polymath7 is right, it is only speculative and has never been definitively diagnosed. He may have displayed some symptoms of Asperger's, but I think many people were (and now) anxious to label him in a feeble attempt to explain his eccentricities. Just because someone breaks the molds and conventions, why do they always have to be labelled as being ill, crazy, diseased, etc.?
wamlf6571 2 years ago
i dont think so,have a look how he communicates with the two sound engineers after the bach recordings.very charming he is doing small talk at nyc´s coffee shop i guess,that´s definitely no asperger´s!
of course he was not able to talk to everybody,but who is able or has the mood to do so!!
berlinzerberus 2 years ago
Actually, my point exactly, at least in part. He was able to be very talkative and charming when he wanted to be, but usually in small gatherings or even more in one on one situations. I think part of the reason it has been speculated that he had Asperger's was b/c he was emotionally (or at least appeared) disconnected from people and was intensely uncomfortable arounds crowds and such among other things. I myself don't think that means Asperger's at all, for many people are similar.
wamlf6571 2 years ago
i agree,glenn was also very contradictory:he was afraid of certain things because he feared getting lost,for example romantic aspects in the piano music,nobody could play brahms,strauss and wagner so emotionally like him.
he was also against hedonism because of his puritanical education i guess,sometimes he alienated mozart or beethoven,but i think he loved both composers.
the alienation effect was his friend i think.meeting and talking to people perhaps the same...?
berlinzerberus 2 years ago
You're right - he was definitely against hedonism. What he disliked about a lot of Romantic Era piano music was it's excessive virtuosity and exhibitionism, which reminded him (understandably) to the pugnacious, competitive, blood-thirsty attitudes towards musical performance. He did love solitude, and expounded upon it's value and benefits. He did love much of Mozart and Beethoven's music, but certainly not all, again due to what he deemed hedonistic and/or egotisical.
wamlf6571 2 years ago
additionally mentioned he was the opinion that all music which is not contrapuntual might low-grade,music of poor quality,perhaps also as a result of the puritanical awareness of life.probably therefore he adored bach´s music so much because his music was the most in accordance with his own character.
berlinzerberus 2 years ago
I seem to remember that he once described Mozart in an interview as "basically a dramatist", which from Gould's point of view was just about the worst possible insult.
lexo30 2 years ago
Yeah, I remember him saying something similar too. I believe it was in reference to after Mozart moved to Vienna and the effects that Viennese opera had on his music. Gould felt that Mozart's music then became too theatrical, which more or less means the same thing as Mozart becoming a "dramatist." That is indeed about the worst insult coming from Gould, although he loved Mozart's early works. He said he would've been happy if his style stayed the same after approximately K.300.
wamlf6571 2 years ago
I don't think that Gould had a very "puritanical education". Apart from the fact that he was very musically gifted from an early age, he had a similar education to most Canadian kids of his generation. I think he had a puritanical temperament.
lexo30 2 years ago
Gould did have a pretty normal education although he didn't finish high school. Part of his puritanical temperament came from his mother, who had a very profound influence on him.
wamlf6571 2 years ago
Comment removed
berlinzerberus 2 years ago
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ein "puritanisches temperament" bildet sich nicht im luftleeren raum!
berlinzerberus 2 years ago
This was truly great music!!
maxhansendk 2 years ago
strange,....... i didn't know this piece ;)
pichuchika 2 years ago
3:23 is a great moment in this fugue. Just great!
agrimm61 2 years ago 2
what a cool fugue, bach not the only one to know how to do this
kowalsky111 2 years ago 3
It's quite interesting how a North American knows soo much about modern European music soo well.
HwangMyungShin 2 years ago 2
yea that is some awesome stuff, gotta check out the llbrary that is just sick
BugzLooney 2 years ago
Absolutely incredible. If I only got my hands on the score.....
tuberman91kills 2 years ago
glenn gould always inspires me to keep my spirits up about piano playing..especially when i get frustrated when i cant master a piece
ThisIsMe113 2 years ago
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Glenn Gould farts at 2:47.
AnonymousWhitePerson 2 years ago
Love this piece and love his recording of it- so cool to see a video! Thanks!!
eumakka 2 years ago 2
Thanks for uploading this - enjoyed it v. much.
vulgusetarceo 2 years ago 2
I find it interesting the way he seems to dance to him playing, maybe it's to remember, but i like how the melodic bits have him singing to himself. And the harsher chords seems to punch him in the face XD
JonnoGradian 2 years ago 3
one of the best fugues ever written!!
Rinhos 2 years ago 4
Da geht mir das Herz auf....
groemel2 2 years ago 3
first, pros usually memorize music.
next: this is just another example of glenn gould's masterful prowess that has barely been touched in the period of recorded music.
KGGSherwin 3 years ago
As we can see, GG always plays without reading any sheet music! His gifted mind used to work like some of the autistic phenomenal minds which keeps and repeats exactly, word for word, everything learned in thousand of books...
manuelkatarino 3 years ago
Glenn Gould assimilated musical pieces with such ease, it's instantly noticeable by the perfection of his renditions. However, we can all agree that his interpretations are sometimes questionable but I tend to side with his notion of playing pieces with a degree of personal nuance. Only a master can infuse his identity into a piece the way Gould did and I don't necessarily concur with the assertion that Glenn was simply repeating things verbatim. Gould was a deeply philosophical musician.
KeithWhalen11 3 years ago 3
Glen Gould could as easily been a musicologist, music historian, a teacher on music theory, or conductor. He was incredibly gifted. I can say I have heard other Pianists who play as well or better on certain pieces, however Gould's performances are unique. Glen Gould's writing on Music (for instance the preface to an edition of the WTC book 2 of Bach) were incredibly insightful on the harmonic progressions used in this book as opposed to the Art of Fugue's harmonic. vocabulary
Renshen1957 2 years ago 3
Thank you for your insight. 2 questions: which other pianists (as well or better, in your words) and second, do you think this piece or anything except Bach held his interes? Best.
peplicus 2 years ago
I will answer your 2nd question1st; GG had eclectic tastes. He played Schoenberg, Webern, Berg as well as Sweelinck and Gibbons (rarely played by concert pianists) and championed the Piano works of Richard Strauss. After abandoning the Concert Hall for the Recording Studio he recorded the Liszt 's transcription of Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Wagner, however GG's name is forever linked with JS Bach and his record buyer public to some extent had an influenced as to his output.
Renshen1957 2 years ago
opulent,oh how glenn could have done such justice to the "ludus tonalis",i truly believe as do i as a buddhist,that some artists,gifted,close to "god",transcend,and bring from the astral and heavenly realms great art.tibetans see color and music as one,hindemith was definately a "astral",and beyond traveler,get into his music people,his opera "cardillac" is a vision,as well his piano pieces and string quartets.
alezander666 3 years ago
すごい演奏だと思う。
oyajiken 3 years ago
wow, i love the way he continually brings back that opening theme in new and innovative ways....this epitomizes everything i love about fugues....remarkable, the best of 20th century music
justinmutchler 3 years ago 2
Gould shreds. Wow.
francescaemc2 3 years ago 2
A treasure. Wonderful playing and great music. Thanks for posting.
andretchaikowskycom 3 years ago 3
I like this recording more than the one on the Gould's CD of Hindemith's sonatas. This one seems more energetic.
skandinavisk94 3 years ago 2
this is very cool
largemoose 3 years ago 2
I always wonder why Gould never recorded Hindmith's Ludus Tonalis -- Hindemith + lots of fugues...it would seem an obvious choice, but alas, no.
p0lyph0ny 3 years ago 7
I hope the prolificacy with which you post your comments will not flag.
As a musical layman, I always find them enlightening whenever I stumble upon them. :)
polymath7 3 years ago
Thank you! I'll try to keep it up. Your comment certainly encourages me :).
p0lyph0ny 3 years ago