Who knew? First film of Glenn Gould conducting Mahler

Who knew? First film of Glenn Gould conducting Mahler

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norman lebrecht

August 29, 2018

From the GG archive:

The soloist in the finale of the second symphony is Maureen Forrester.

Comments

  • Ben G. says:

    This rare recording shows how beautiful and expressive Gould’s hand movements were. I would have loved to have played with a conductor like him.

  • Novagerio says:

    Haven’t you seen him conducting the elephants in Antonius’ Fischpredigt?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57kR6RsV2iA

    • Petros Linardos says:

      His singing at the animals is my favorite Gould clip. I particularly like how he imitates the orchestra.

  • Greg says:

    Maybe it’s just me, but he seems to have way too much superfluous left motion. He subdivides the beat unnecessarily and frenetically during the brass chorale and his jarring attacks don’t match the quiet, sostenuto style of the music. He often looks like he is flailing IMHO. As over the top as Bernstein was, at least his gestures were communicative and precise.

  • Joel stein says:

    I saw this on a laser disc years ago.

  • Alexander Tarak says:

    Who knew????
    This hardly qualifies as news.
    I saw this film almost thirty ago.

  • Nelson says:

    Who knew? We all knew who have been paying attention. It was released on Laser Disc and VHS several decades ago. It’s in the currently available DVD set “Glenn Gould on Television”. A little research goes a long way.

  • Jack says:

    Fascinating! And it features a great Mahler singer in the process.

  • Vincent says:

    This was part of the Glenn Gould film collection released by Sony Classical on VHS.

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