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Did glenn Gould improvise?

Did glenn Gould improvise?

As an artist who privately enjoyed his own remarkable gifts as an improviser, Gould saw hidden dangers that others might never have noticed. “Not least among those dangers may be the hedonistic pursuit of improvisation as a way of life”, he wrote.

Did glenn Gould record chopin?

Although Gould neither liked nor empathized with Chopin’s major works, he professed to admire his miniatures but never recorded any nor, after his earliest student recitals, played them.

How many times did Glenn Gould record the Goldberg Variations?

The late great Canadian pianist Glenn Gould made two significant and highly-acclaimed recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the first in 1955 when he was just 22, the second a quarter of a century later in 1981 when he was nearing the end of his life.

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When did Glenn Gould record Goldberg Variations?

Bach: The Goldberg Variations (Glenn Gould album)

Goldberg Variations
Released January 1956
Recorded June 10, 1955 – June 16, 1955
Genre Classical
Length 38:34

What are the 24 Preludes and fugues by Shostakovich?

The 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87 by Dmitri Shostakovich are a set of 24 musical pieces for solo piano, one in each of the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. The cycle was composed in 1950 and 1951 while Shostakovich was in Moscow, and premiered by pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva in Leningrad in December 1952; it was published the same year.

How long did it take Shostakovich to write each piece?

Inspired by the competition and impressed by Nikolayeva’s playing, Shostakovich returned to Moscow and started composing his own cycle of 24 preludes and fugues. Shostakovich worked fairly quickly, taking only three days on average to write each piece.

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What is the inspiration for Shostakovich’s cycle?

J.S. Bach ‘s The Well-Tempered Clavier, an earlier set of 48 preludes and fugues, is widely held to be the direct inspiration for Shostakovich’s cycle, largely based on the work’s composition history (see below). References to and quotations from Bach’s cycle appear throughout the work.

What is the tone of the fugue by Shostakovich?

The tone is wistful, mostly pianissimo and the harmonic language is very much Shostakovich’s own. The tone continues in the Fugue; whereas Bach begins with a scaled 4th, Shostakovich has a bleak bare 5th. In contrast to the characteristic harmonic complexity of the prelude, the fugue is written in pandiatonic C major, without a single accidental.